Vision Academy… The Maktab Transformation Programme
Maktab is a community managed Primary to Middle level school functioning predominately in semi-urban and rural areas with sizeable Muslim population clusters. Students are provided basic education in modern subjects like Mathematics, Social Sciences, English, Hindi, Sciences etc. along with Quranic teachings. The student count in these Maktabs ranges from few dozens to over a thousand students. However the average students numbers around 200 to 400 in majority of the Maktabs.
These Maktabs are facing challenge in providing quality education since last few decades. The key issue is untrained teachers; out-dated curriculum, dearth of basic amenities, lack of classroom resources and no provision for sporting or cultural activities.
There is a dearth of institutions with decent infrastructure and quality education at an affordable cost in high Muslims populated areas. This makes Maktabs as a key source of education for Muslim children from weaker socio-economic segment in rural to semi-urban areas in Uttar Pradesh.
These maktabs are challenge as well as opportunity for the community. If the community is able to properly utilise their physical resource, team of dedicated teachers and efficient administrators, maktabs can become a catalyst for the transformation of socio-economic status of the community by providing quality education within an inclusive Islamic environment at an affordable cost.
Maktab transformation is therefore needed to be taken on top priority by the community to move from the margins to the national mainstream.
Manappat Foundation has understood the potential of maktab as agent of change and decided to become lead facilitator for transformation of maktabs in Uttar Pradesh under Vision2040 Program.
The basic framework of this project will be to;
The desired transformation can be achieved by pooling the diverse resources of Manappat Foundation, maktabs and local community. As a facilitator, Vision 2040 team will bring domain expertise and required seed funding while maktab team will contribute with physical infrastructure; committed manpower and community connect.
- Identify maktabs with basic infrastructure and willing management
- Provide investment for basic amenities and resources for the maktabs
- Develop modern education curriculum for maktabs in consultation with domain experts.
- Design and implement teachers training program the field of Subject Knowledge, Teaching Skill and Behaviour for effective implementation of curriculum.
- Conduct regular audit and reviews on set quality parameters. Suggest corrective actions to maktab team, based on the quality audits.
Standard operational processes are being created for all the key activities associated with this project. Technology will be used extensively in learning and development as well as operational management. All the participating maktabs will follow a standard design template to provide uniform look and feel.
This collective template for different interventions under this maktab transformation project of Vision 2040 is designated as Vision Academy.