Dhadgaon Cluster

Balbhavans in Dhadgaon

Dhadgaon is the northern most block of Nandurbar district in the Satpuda ranges. The block is dominated by the tribal population of Pawaras & Bhillas.  Nandurbar District ranks lowest in 35 districts of Maharashtra state on literacy and Human Development Index. Baseline studies undertaken in the District by Sir Ratan Tata Trust along with QUEST, on the tests developed by QUEST confirms the finding.  One of the key findings of the baseline studies were - extremely low learning levels among children in Standard 2. Majority students (76% for language and 58% for mathematics) scored less than 40% marks.

This initiated QUEST’s Grameen Balbhavan programme in Dhadgaon to improve the language attainment levels of the children. The programme is supported by Sir Ratan Tata Trust.  The Balbhavans started functioning in July 2009. Children from Grade 1 & 2 are given inputs in the Balbhavan by trained local youths, the Balmitra, for improving language and math skills.

At present 9 Balbhavans are functional at the following locations: Kakarda, Son, Mandvi, Sisa, Chulwad, Rajbardi, Survanee, Dhadgaon, Jamana. The total number of students covered under the programme till November 2011 is 1849.

The focus in the first year was on implementation of Maze Pustak to improve the language attainment levels in these students. After 2 years of direct intervention, a summative test was administered in March 2011 to the students of Grade 1 and 2 in Balbhavans. The graphs below shows the comparison between performance of students of Grade 2 from the Balbhavans and the baseline  test conducted in the Nandurbar District.

Comparison with Nandurbar Baseline data