The limits of best practices

During 2001-02 the Azim Premji Foundation launched a programme, the Accelerated Learning Programme, to support the academic achievements of children who were enrolled in government schools after a bridge programme conducted by the state government. Before enrolment, the children were to be assessed for their competencies in order to be placed in the appropriate grades. However, the last-mile execution did not follow the pre-determined path and the children got enrolled simply in their age-appropriate grades. Illustratively, if a child was 10 years old, he/she got enrolled in Class 4 — whether or not he/she possessed Class 4 competencies. This created the risk of children not understanding what was happening in the classroom and dropping out. Therefore, in collaboration with the state government, the Accelerated Learning Programme was launched in 1,016 schools across 46 blocks of seven districts of the state.