Committed to building strong foundations for thoughtful learning in young children from low literate backgrounds

ORGANISATION FOR EARLY LITERACY PROMOTION

OELP is a registered non-profit and civil society organization founded in 2008. We are committed to enhancing the quality and responsiveness of the educational experience for children, so that they can learn with fullness. The COVID pandemic has hit OELP hard. To stay afloat we have been compelled to reinvent ourselves with a greater presence in the digital space.

Our Understanding >

Glimpses of Our Engagements

Village Libraries and Community Programmes

Supported the programme for foundational learning in schools across 7 districts of Rajasthan through a four year MOU with the State and a core demonstration program at Ajmer. On completion, a subsequent MoU has been signed for three years i.e. June 2023 to 2026 to support government schools to implement Foundation Learning Programmes in 3 Blocks in the Ajmer District and the core demonstration programme for supporting programmes across wider locations

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Testimonials

The Organisation for Early Literacy Promotion has done pioneering work in early literacy in India. It is an enormously difficult task to successfully introduce children from socioeconomically challenged regions to school-based learning. Literacy is foundational to most school-based learning, so if it is not dealt with in a sensitive and contextually grounded manner, children disengage and eventually get “pushed out” of schools. OELP has managed to bring researched and validated approaches to early literacy from around the world and to recast these understandings in locally grounded ways to enable children to not just stay in schools, but to learn, grow and thrive. The attention to the “whole child” and the respect for the child’s environment is evident in each decision made by OELP. India is truly fortunate to have organizations like OELP leading us on the journey to a literate country. I wish OELP all the very best as it matures as a mentor organisation in this domain!

Dr. Shailaja Menon
Associate Professor
Azim Premji University

OELP has done commendable work in the past decade in developing strategies that can be implemented at scale in early primary grades that help build children’s foundational learning including early literacy and numeracy. I have had an opportunity to visit schools in Ajmer district in Rajasthan where OELP has implemented these strategies in collaboration with the state government. The transformation in teaching and learning processes and improvement in student learning is clearly visible in these classrooms. I was especially impressed with the work done on developing children’s oral language abilities and reading comprehension.

Dr Dhir Jhingran
Founder and Director
Language and Learning Foundation

Stories from the Ground

Reaching the Unreached

Azad’s story represents the story of thousands of vulnerable children like him for whom entry into school is just the beginning of a real struggle. It is the struggle of young children who grow up at the lower rungs of the social ladder. Children who do not have support for school-based learning at home. This is a struggle for crossing the bridge from exclusion to inclusion.

Dissolving Caste Boundaries

Leela’s effort finally paid off and Meena* became the first Baghriya child to be enrolled in the Patan government school. Meena also started coming to the library. Over time, more children from her basti joined her. Today, Meena is in Grade 8. She is a confident learner. In the last few years, several children from her community have been enrolled in the school.

*name has been changed

Engaging With Parents

In the month of December, every year there is an exciting buzz in all the OELP classes as the children are given the responsibility of bringing their parents to the parent meeting. The children make colourful invitation cards for their parents. Parents who were earlier dismissive of these meetings now take the trouble to reorganise their chores so that they can make the time to attend.

Children's Journey Over Two Years

Each OELP teacher tries to ensure that four to six pieces of children’s written work go into each child’s portfolio in a month. This allows us to see the progressions in each child’s writing over time. Flipping through a folder is a reliable way of seeing the progress in the child’s learning.

The Story of a Little Girl Who Was a Keen Learner

Bajranj Lal and his wife Rachna live in a small village in Hanumangarh. They are farmers and spend most of their time working in their fields. Bajranj had studied up to class eight and had big dreams for his little daughter, Nancy. So one day in early July 2018, he landed up in the Government Primary to enroll his daughter.

How a DIET Took Ownership of a Programme

Creating an OELP Demo room in a DIET (District Institute of Education and Training) at SriGanganagar and conducting regular trainings in the Demo room got the DIET faculty actively involved with the OELP program. They began to monitor the progress, mentor teachers and school visits became a regular feature.

The Story of a Struggling School In Jaisalmer

The Head Mistress of a Govt. school in Jaisalmer familiarizes herself with OELP’s pedagogy and regularly attends meetings and training. She begins to teach children and enjoys teaching a lot. The engagement in class dramatically increases and children become more regular and active in the classroom processes.

The Inner World of a Teacher

Over the years, the local field team situated in the core district of Ajmer, has played a critical role in our evolution. The growth stories, especially the stories of some of the women – who they were and what they have become, have helped us deepen our engagement with many teachers in government schools as we scale up across wider locations.

Our Partners: Past and Present

We are grateful for their valuable support

Acknowledgement

The OELP website has been created by a dedicated and talented team. We would like to thank Swapnil Gaikwad for designing the website, Ralph Fernandes for development of the website, and Priyanka Upreti for contributions towards content creation and overall management. A special mention to the group of eleventh grade students from Pathways School, Noida for their support in creatively designing some classroom resources and helping with a blueprint for the website.