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Masoom is an Indian non-government organization dedicated to the youth who struggle to complete their education. It is currently operational in Mumbai - India. Masoom works towards building a strong academic foundation and better career opportunities for students of night schools in Mumbai. Masoom focuses on improving infrastructure, educational materials. Nikita Ketkar (Founder & CEO), who has worked earlier with the Armed Forces Civil Service, Save the Children and Magic Bus, came across the problems in a night school during a research project. Since then, she has a vision of giving the students equal opportunities as those studying in a regular day school. She has received ICONGO Excellence Award in Delhi in 2009.

History of Masoom
In 2001, Nikita Ketkar (founder and CEO) came across night schools by matter of chance. She came to the realization that the students had big aspirations for the future, but most importantly they had faith in education. From there, the idea was born to give back to the students a higher quality of education commensurate with their faith and dedication in the system.

In 2006 Nikita initiated a participatory research project on Night Schools in Mumbai. The research was sponsored by Partners for Urban Knowledge Action and Research (PUKAR), an organization that offers fellowships for young researchers to uproot social-economic issues in Mumbai.

Nikita formed a team of 6 researchers, some of whom had previously studied at night schools and therefore could offer firsthand experience and insight into the research.

The report, “To Understand Educational Needs of Night School Students and Developing Methods to overcome them”, was completed in 2007.

The report concluded that night schools were failing to meet expectations and fulfill their potential. At the very least they demonstrated the need for improved resource and infrastructure, such as; computer literacy support, a library, evening nutrition, sex education, a counseling service, home support and careers guidance.

The outcome of the research naturally led to the realization that action needed to be taken to improve the night school system. This led to creation of Masoom.

Masoom was registered as a Charitable Trust on the 14th January 2008.

History of Night Schools
Masoom is working with Night school's because India’s education scenario is very complex with wide gaps in access and quality. There are numerous night schools in Maharashtra, many of which are secondary schools. Children often complete their primary schooling in rural areas and then travel to the city.

Many night schools are owned by the government and tend to have high admission rates. There are around 210 night schools in the state of Maharashtra, of which around 150 are in Mumbai and approximately 100 of these belong to the BMC premises and are run by various private charitable trusts. Around 10,000 to 15,000 youth aged between 15 to 25 years old study in these schools.

Unfortunately the schools suffer from a lack of supervision, a lack of teaching resources and poor quality teaching. This leads to a high student “drop out” rate.

Masoom is trying to help these night schools to overcome from these kind of issues and to make such schools self sustainable.

Model of Masoom
Masoom recognizes that the task of addressing poor quality education in night schools requires a multi-pronged approach. Masoom has developed a three pronged intervention model to provide good quality education to night school students.

The Night School Transformation Program has been designed so that it can be replicated and implemented in other schools and other states in India.

The program has undergone an essential change. The focus has realigned from a solely student-centric approach to one that is equitably distributed across all key stakeholders of the night school system. This strategic change ensures a holistic improvement of schools and in turn enables sustainability of Masoom’s impact.

Masoom’s educational coordinators work closely with the night school teachers to implement the Night School Transformation Program.

The program is based on a strategic model that is designed to firstly, assess and improve the infrastructure within schools, such as the volume of notebooks available. Secondly, assess the capacity of education provided, such as breadth and diversity of subjects taught and quality of teaching. Finally, Masoom works as an advocate for the rights of the night school students. Masoom liaises between the teachers, Head Masters, trustees, local government and volunteers in order to deliver program improvements and share valuable information.

Infrastructure
Masoom provides access to educational infrastructure and resources. This includes nutrition (evening meals), computers, science laboratory apparatus, mathematics kits, library books, notebooks, educational charts, workbooks and worksheets, teacher training material, Braille textbook's, and audio-visual material such as TV's, DVD's and academic CD's.

Capacity Building
Masoom organizes training sessions and workshops for teachers, parents and students. The workshops cover a variety of subjects such as; English conversation classes, vocational guidance for students, counseling, home visits, extracurricular classes, basic life skills, yoga, meditation, sports, activities and events.

Advocacy
Masoom takes initiative to bring about policy level changes in favor of night schools. Masoom is aiming to raise awareness through advocacy with the public and key decision-makers about the urgent needs of the night schools in order to ensure positive change.

Infrastructure, inputs and student engagement

 * Masoom intervention model is helping 15 night schools to improve their educational performance. It aims to take have 40 night schools under its umbrella by April 2013.

Provision of school supplies and nutrition has encouraged an increase in attendance. Home visits and phone calls to absent students have prevented further drop outs.


 * 1500 underprivileged students have been provided with educational resources and nutrition.


 * 100 out-of-school children or adolescents have been enrolled into night schools since 2010.

Campaigns by way of street plays and door-to-door visits helped to augment the enrollment of students to the night schools, as well as creating awareness about Masoom’s program.


 * Many blind students have been provided with Braille kits.

Capacity building

 * SSC pass rate has risen from 36% to 100% in many Masoom night schools.


 * The success rate has doubled over the past four years as a result of initiatives like extra classes and study material, guidance sessions with SSC moderators, science labs, etc.


 * Masoom has trained more than 100 night school teachers since 2008.


 * A key teacher has been appointed in each school to closely monitor the implementation of Masoom’s programs, thereby providing support and ongoing feedback to our team.


 * Many night school students have been counseled.


 * Since the inception of the scholarship program in 2009, scholarships have been awarded to underprivileged students.


 * Scholarships have been granted to students pursuing higher studies or enrolling in vocational courses. Scholarships are need based as well as merit based.


 * Access to technical courses has been provided to students.

Advocacy

 * workshops have been conducted with the education department.


 * Masoom has influenced the inclusion of night schools in Mumbai’s Human Development report.

Masoom Schools
Masoom currently works with a total of 15 night schools in Mumbai with the aim of further expansion. These schools are run by charitable trusts supported by the salary grant of the Education Department of Maharashtra government.