CEO, The Akanksha Foundation
Akanksha has always been on a continuous path of learning about the bluose of education in a rapidly changing world. The year 2017-2018 was a year of ‘Looking Ahead’ for all of us. Building on Akanksha’s 27 years of experience during the previous two phases, 1991-2007 when Akanksha ran the after-school centres and 2007-2017 when we transitioned into running 20 schools, we wanted to define what the next decade in Akanksha’s journey would look like.
What would define excellent education in the coming ten years and hence, what would an Akanksha graduate look like?
How do we further our vision of serving ALL children?
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The Akanksha Foundation is a non-profit organisation (across Mumbai and Pune) with a mission to provide children from low-income communities with a high-quality education, enabling them to maximize their potential and transform their lives.
Alumni
Schools
Cities
Children
Today, we are one of the largest urban networks of public-private partnership schools of its kind in India. Looking ahead, we seek to expand our network of schools, share our effective practices and advocate for quality school reform for children across India.
In 2007, Akanksha aimed to create a model for high performing schools through The School Project, in collaboration with the Pune Municipal Corporation. Over the past 10 years, we have grown to 20 schools across Mumbai and Pune serving over 7400 children, in partnership with the PMC, PCMC, and the MCGM.
Our biggest priority through the year was ensuring that our schools are making continuous progress in their classrooms as well as providing high-quality experience and support to every student and family we serve.
Each Akanksha school builds and develops a team of teachers, a School Leader, admin, and a social worker collaborating to run the school.
The Akanksha curriculum and Network Support Team empowers teachers and school leaders with best practices in pedagogy, using a skills-based approach and rigorous standards for Student Learning.
Parents actively engage in the process of their child’s development through programs such as the School Management Committee, parent literacy classes, and parent volunteering
All schools undergo a School Development Review & biannual performance review to assess progress & plan next steps for school development. This encompasses reaching all children through our youth development initiatives nurtures the passion and talent of every child.
Each school maximises their use of time, money & materials - creatively leveraging government infrastructure, volunteers and a disciplined approach to managing the cost per child annually of our School.
We conduct School Culture Survey to draw insights on three key domains - relationship with leadership, mutual trust and respect, and teacher well being. The survey helps support the School Leaders to continuously strive towards maintaining a healthy school culture in alignment with our organisation’s values.
positive responses on relationship with school’s leadership indicating faith in our school leaders.
positive responses on the culture of mutual trust and respect
positive responses on teacher well being
Nearly 300 teachers participated in the survey. 40% of the teachers were with the Akanksha Foundation between 1-3 years, and 34% were with the Foundation for more than 3 years. The survey measured leadership, respect and trust, teacher well being, and engagement.
At Akanksha, we are continuously striving to strengthen our schools. We focus on three specific aspects that we believe would lead to the strengthening and development of our schools - Academic Achievement, Youth Development, and Community engagement.
Student Retention
Teacher Attendance
Parent Attendance
Student Attendance
Our focus is on skill development for every child, and on balancing traditional and progressive teaching methods to enhance learning opportunities. To support this focus, we ensure that the teaching staff and School Leaders are provided with regular training and are supported by Akanksha’s central Network Support Team. Teaching and Leadership Staff are provided support in creating structured lesson and learning plans.
Our focus aims to provide age appropriate character building and socio-emotional skill development. Teachers, counsellors and social workers collaborate to make these goals come alive in the school.
We encourage children and adults to openly discuss about the issues and challenges that affect learning and the well-being of children (like bullying, alcohol abuse, and domestic violence). These are addressed through effective listening and collaborative problem solving.
We believe that learning happens everywhere and in many innovative ways and the fewer the boundaries of subjects and content, the greater the learning. We put together a module of 35 lessons which brings together two very different subjects – Math and Art. It was designed for our Art and Math teachers to have fun with, explore, and go deeper for themselves and their students. These modules demonstrated that Math can be studied in different ways.
Through the Community Engagement focus, our aim is to strengthen parent-teacher engagement to aid student learning outcomes. We focus on developing strategies to work with communities at large to work in transformational manner.
Social workers lead a team of parents and help equip them with knowledge and skills they can use to drive positive change within the school by developing life skills ranging from health, hygiene and nutritional awareness along with spoken English classes.
of Akanksha schools have fully functioning SMCs trained on a regular basis versus 66% across the country
of Akanksha schools have consistent parent development initiatives offered through the year
CEO, The Akanksha Foundation
Akanksha has always been on a continuous path of learning about the bluose of education in a rapidly changing world. The year 2017-2018 was a year of ‘Looking Ahead’ for all of us. Building on Akanksha’s 27 years of experience during the previous two phases, 1991-2007 when Akanksha ran the after-school centres and 2007-2017 when we transitioned into running 20 schools, we wanted to define what the next decade in Akanksha’s journey would look like. We asked ourselves two fundamental questions:
1. What would define excellent education in the coming ten years and hence, what would an Akanksha graduate look like?
2. How do we further our vision of serving all children?
While exploring answers to the above questions, we reached out to all our stakeholders - from the children in our classrooms to the board members of Akanksha. After a year long process, we emerged with a revised mission of Akanksha- to build one of the largest network of innovative schools that empowers children to maximise their potential and that influences systemic reform. As we continue to strengthen our schools and deepen our impact, we have taken a critical look at how we can develop 21st century knowledge, skills and values in our children. This helped us to craft a Student Vision framework that envisions all Akanksha students to graduate with a sense of Mastery, Autonomy and bluose, empowered with essential knowledge and skills like critical thinking, creativity, collaboration and communication with a deep focus on our core values.
Today, while we are proud of how far our network of schools have reached , we also acknowledge how far we have to go. We believe the learning taking place in each classroom can be more rigorous and fun for each child and needs to be better differentiated to address the diverse needs of all the students in our classrooms.
The School Development Review (SDR) plays a monumental role in achieving this by providing consistent support to our school teams and equipping them with the skills and resources they need, to work with each child and improve their practises. This year we incorporated the Akanksha pillars to the School Development Review for deeper understanding of each school goals. This has surfaced Akanksha’s best practises and brought attention to very specific focus areas, which we would not have realised otherwise.
As we embark on this new phase in Akanksha’s journey our aim will be to build a stronger organisation culture during this time of change that is inclusive, transparent and empowering. We believe that our values will form the foundation for us to work towards the ambitious goals we have in front of us, enjoy the process, learn from our mistakes, take pride in our achievements and innovate for the future.
We have over 2500 School and Centre Alumni who have carved a strong path
for themselves with their career and further studies.
In 2017, Akanksha initiated their Alumni Support and Engagement program to create an ecosystem of support for all alumni to fulfill their life goals.
The program aims to address the growing needs of the organization as it continues to evolve. To ensure that we support our alumni in the best possible manner, we conducted a round of research to understand the needs of our alumni. Through surveys, town halls and personal interviews, we arrived at the five key areas that needed to be addressed.
of our alumni have cleared Grade 12
School and Center Alumni
of our students passing the SSC enroll in Junior College
of our Alumni enroll in degree college to continue education
Employment Support
Financial Support
Parental Engagement
College & Career Awareness
Life Skills
A book featuring 25 of Akanksha’s alumni stories
This year we launched a book, edited by Saker Mistri, that highlights and celebrates 25 Akanksha stories. Each of the stories is a representation of the stories of the millions of young people in our country and the barriers that stand before them to reach their dreams. The book is about parents and teachers and the school as a community that has the power to change lives.
Established in 2013, India School leadership Institute (ISLI) is a project of Akanksha Foundation and among the first organisations in India dedicated to developing skills of School Leaders.
Schools
Students
Cities
School Leaders include principals, headmasters/headmistresses & owners of Government, budget-private or low-income schools. ISLI aims to create a pipeline of leaders equipped to lead high performing schools for children of underserved communities and establish the benchmark for School Leadership training in India. The Fellowship Programme, which is specially designed to develop and improve their skills in order to provide a great education in their schools.
Being the change at Akanksha is living and leading by our values. It empowers us to transform our teams, our schools, and our organisation into all that it can be. Be The CHANGE articulates the spirit of our 6 core values.
Akanksha 3.0 is based on three principles — Prove, Multiply, and Advocate. Going into the future, Akanksha will create multiple ‘proof points’ through its schools, students and alumni who demonstrate the power of our vision. This network of our people and our schools will act as ‘multipliers’ and ‘advocates’ influencing school system reform through advocacy and partnerships.
Schools
Children & Alumni
Cities
Children
Strengthening proof points through schools, students and alumni
Participate in policy advocacy through research & partnerships
Enable setting up 65 Akanksha inspired schools through a School Leadership Academy
Unleash the power of voice of our students, educators, parents to influence neighbourhood schools & the wider community
Developing 15 more ‘proof points’ in new cities, or through innovative schools
We envision all students graduate from our school empowered with a sense of Mastery, Autonomy & bluose for success in the 21st Century
Values
Skills
Key Knowledge domains
New Competencies
Being the change at Akanksha, is living and leading by our values. It empowers us to transform our teams, our schools and our organisation into all that it can be.
COLLABORATE
We come together to reach our vision. We reach out to support each other in achieving our goals and we derive joy in other’s success.
HAVE BELIEF
We are here because we believe. We believe in our vision, mission and in our ability to achieve ambitious goals. We believe in each other’s potential to go beyond expectations.
ACT WITH INTEGRITY
We do what we say we will do. We take ownership of our actions. We hold ourselves and others accountable to the goals we set and our commitments.
NEVER GIVE UP
We do whatever it takes! We are resilient and learn from our mistakes. We are persistent in our passion for long-term goals.
GIVE RESPECT
We embrace our diversity. We care deeply about each other and treat everyone with dignity.
EXCEL & ENJOY
We raise the bar and go beyond expectations. We strive to learn continuously and push ourselves to get better every day in the role we play. We derive enjoyment in working together, in each others success and in everything that we do.
The Akanksha School Leadership Academy aims to create transformational leaders who will overcome the challenges of educational inequity by designing schools that are progressive, rigorous and joyful for children. We aim to create visionary leaders who drive a learning environment that ensures success through academic achievement, social & emotional support, and a strong relationship with the community.
Our approach is grounded in immersing aspiring School Leaders in all aspects of school leadership through experiential learning and consistent focus on the leadership competencies. These competencies form the foundation of our program and aim to equip our aspiring school leaders with the skills and attitudes necessary to inspire and motivate a team of excellent educators, working together to provide children with a love for learning and life.
Designing a Vision
Instructional Leadership
Strategic Thinking
Developing People & Culture
Voltas House ‘C’, TB Kadam Marg,
Chinchpokli Mumbai 400 033
+91 22 23700253
+91 22 23729880
New Thermax Building, Next to Sai
Chambers Old Bombay Pune Highway
Road, Wakdewadi Pune 411 003
+91 22 25540008/09
+91 20 66051380
