The Jolly Phonics programme, for teaching reading and writing in English, has been adopted by all schools in Akola district in Mharashtra State in India.
July 2022 was a busy month for Neeti Nagarkar and her team of Jolly Phonics trainers. They delivered 28 training sessions for 1249 teachers from 916 schools in Akola District. The teachers each were trained for two days covering the foundation of the Jolly Phonics programme. In addition, Neeti delivered training for Government Officials (6 Education Extension Officers, 7 Block Officers and 88 Cluster Heads) to sensitise them to them Jolly Phonics programme and offer advice for monitoring and mentoring teachers during the implementation.
Mr. Randhir Sawarkar- MLA, showed appreciation to Jolly Learning Ltd for the programme and the generous donations of materials and training. The programme will impact 12,418 students and significantly improve literacy levels in Akola. Mr. Saurabh Katiyar-CEO Zilla Parishad has extended his full support and is helping to monitor the progress of the project.
A teacher commented “We are blessed to receive such training for the benefit of our children from rural areas. Half the children in my school are the first-generation learners’ and similar is the situation in more schools.”
The implementation of Jolly Phonics began in the schools immediately and after 6 short weeks it is amazing to see that the children from vernacular medium schools are reading words. The teachers have understood the power of teaching English using Jolly Phonics and the accompanying resources.
Neeti and her team will travel to Akola again in November 2022 to deliver the second part of training. This will empower teachers to support their learners to progress to the second stage of the programme.
Special thanks to all members of the Akola Education Department for supporting the implementation of Jolly Phonics in their schools.
Appreciation to Neeti Nagarkar for the coordination of the project and her dedicated team of trainers; Anagha Bahulikar, Preeti Lodaya, Shalini Ramanathan, R. Hemalatha, Hansa Jain, Ruchika Chalana, Harshala Jadhav, Dipti Tekchandani, Nikita Kashyap and Utpala Chaudhary.
Jolly Learning Ltd generously donated free materials and teacher training to Akola District through the Jolly Futures offer.