Educational Initiatives

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Educational Initiatives (EI http://www.ei-india.com/) is a company working in the areas of Educational Research, Assessment & Consultancy in India.

Educational Initiatives, is attempting to promote a culture of Quality within the primary school systems within India by raising concerns related to the quality of learning, providing services related to assessment, professional development of teachers, curriculum and pedagogy, and influencing educational policy, especially in the realm of assessment.

The Indian primary school system is vast. However, the quality of learning taking place within this system is often believed to be of poor quality. Educational Initiatives has taken a "Systems Approach" to this situation in their attempt to significantly improve the quality of learning among students. They rely on a cycle of problem discovery, cause identification, solution implementation and feedback (which may lead to a deeper level of problem identification), a positive spiral towards improvement.

EI published a survey, along with Wipro, of learning levels in what they call the 'best schools' of the country. The survey results prompted India Today to bring out a cover story in the 19th November, 2006 entitled "What's wrong with our Teaching". The survey claims that the top schools in the country show an 'alarming' gap in learning and that learning that is happening is by rote. The survey makes a controversial claim that students in India are underperforming students in 43 other countries.

The flagship product of EI is ASSET, a test conducted in the school premises. The test measures student learning across 5 subjects including English, Maths, Science, Social Studies and Hindi. Strengths and Weaknesses of the individual students in the subjects tested are identified and a feedback is given back to them on the same. A similar feedback is given to the participant school, using the collective output of all its students. The online version of ASSET is ASSETOnline(http://www.assetonline.in/), which is intended for usage from home on an individual basis.

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