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Campaign Updates

The School Choice Campaign (SCC) is a national campaign. Our work spans across seven states- Delhi, Jharkhand, Uttar Pradesh, Orissa, Rajasthan, Tamil Nadu, and Bihar. SCC has entered into long-term partnerships with 250 member NGOs in these states to take the message of school choice to the people, politicians and above all, policy makers.

Mass Campaign Front

In the initial phase of our Mass Campaign in six states - Uttar Pradesh, Tamil Nadu, Orissa, Jharkhand, Rajasthan and Delhi , we were able to generate awareness among poor parents about the extent of the resources that the government spends, to educate their children, and what they should demand for genuine empowerment. Using various communication channels like street theatre, dance and song performances, rallies and interactive mobile vans to name a few, SCC has been successful in reaching out to more than 1, 21, 00, 000 parents directly and has till date collected 27, 38, 546 signatures on petitions seeking school vouchers for their children.

Policy Advocacy Front

We consistently interact with policy makers to bring about innovative policy changes. Besides vouchers, we also advocate reforms to improve government schooling through per-child funding and promote decentralization, regulatory reforms - to expand the supply of schools - and transparency by abolishing of the license- permit raj in education.

As part of our National Advocacy Campaign, we have so far conducted over 250 meetings, workshops, seminars and presentations with various Union Ministers, Chief Ministers, Governors, States Ministers, Senior officials of Education, Social Welfare & Tribal Affairs Departments, Leaders of Political parties, Members of the Planning Commission, State Education Boards, NGO Leaders and Civil Society Activists, International Aid Agencies, Editors and Columnists, Academicians and Researchers.

In 2008 the SCC conducted a one day interactive workshop on 30 July 2008 for the Rajasthan Education Department on Education Vouchers in context of the Gyanodaya and Shikshak Ka Apna School schemes launched by the Government of Rajasthan in its 2008-2009 Budget. Successful meetings with the Education Minister of Jharkhand, Mr Bandhu Tirkey led to the minister announcing pilot projects in three districts of Hazaribagh, Chatra and Dumkha in Jharkhand.

Public Opinion Campaign Front

Events: Through innovative and interactive dialogues, seminars, conferences and workshops, the School Choice Campaign is networking with various stakeholders in the education sector, thereby facilitating exchange of information, sharing of experiences, creating a platform to discuss existent policies to generate new ideas to bring about policy reform.

Research and Publications: We have a dedicated team of researchers and scholars studying the practical applicability of school choice ideas like school vouchers, independent accreditation of schools and per-child funding in the Indian context. We continually update ourselves with data and evaluations of school choice programs from world over. Through publications and research studies, which are disseminated to targeted audience, SCC is facilitating better understanding amongst various strata of society, about the role of choice and competition in improving the quality of education.

Media Outreach : The recent years have seen a huge increase in our media visibility, and publicity through the various forms of media - print, electronic, radio and the web has become an integral part of our project design and planning. Our focus has been on both general publicity of our principles and policies as well as publicity for individual campaigns, projects and events. We run media campaigns, online voting demanding school choice, and publish two newsletters, Student First!, which is a bi-monthly campaign newsletter and Student First! News (e-newsletter), which has weekly updates on education news. These two successfully communicate our ideas and work to our target audience. The School Choice blog and networking on Facebook too form an integral part of our interactive communication channels.

As the Campaign's Ambassadors, prominent leaders of the community such as Gurcharan Das (Author of India Unbound), Madhav Chauvan (Director, Pratham), Professor P V Indiresan (Former Director, IIT - Chennai) have been outspoken proponents of the School Choice ideas.

Legal Campaign Front

A Public Interest Litigation has been submitted to the Delhi High Court challenging the arbitrary and whimsical allocation of funds by the Government of NCT Delhi to the schools it runs and operates.

SCC won a PIL on school admission in the Delhi High Court in 2008. The government of Delhi issued a circular to the schools, giving guidelines for carrying out the admissions. In the matter of the Public Interest Litigation (PIL) filed by the Centre for Civil Society seeking the Court's intervention to ensure compliance by schools of the government regulations for nursery admissions, the Hon'ble High Court of Delhi has passed an order agreeing with the contentions of the petitioner.

Pilot Projects

As a demonstration to governments, School Choice Campaign's Delhi Voucher Project (DVP) is distributing vouchers worth up to Rs 3,600 to 408 students from 68 wards of Delhi for a period of three years (2007-2009). The findings of the assessment of the Delhi Voucher Project have prompted us to take the voucher idea further and launch another project; this time exclusively for the girl child. Delhi Girls Voucher Programme is a culmination of the efforts of the SCC to reach out to more poor parents and children. The project will fund 400 girls for a period of 5 years and cover their education costs up to the fifth grade. Girl children from poor families who are currently studying in the second grade in state-run schools will be eligible for the programme and will receive vouchers worth upto Rs 4,000 ($85) per annum.