Two years at LFE!

Dear Friend & Supporter of LFE,

We write to you with the utmost humility of sharing LFE’s journey in the last 2 years. It has been nothing less than inspiring - to continue to strive for smaller successes in ever-evolving government systems; to create meaningful policy shifts by deepening our existing government relationships; and to explore opportunities that will lead to a perceptible shift in improving the learning of the students.

Organisational growth & clarity

The last two years at LFE have been quite eventful and productive. We have expanded our reach from 2 projects in Pune to 7 projects across Maharashtra; from a 5 member team to a 30 member team now; from a 25 lakh budget to 310 lakh budget; and from endlessly waiting in the halls of government offices to sitting in on government committees - we are super proud of how far we have come! More importantly, we have stayed true to our commitment to building ‘public education systems that refuse to let children down’

All this, while ensuring that we have built a strong team which is rooted in what’s right for the stakeholders we serve. With over 80% staff retention, we are excited to grow into a 30 member team in a few weeks from now. In deepening our commitment to equity, we have introduced ‘Menstrual Leave’ policy with additional leave and work-from-home options for the women in the organisation.

In the last few months, we have also developed better clarity and articulation of our approach to effectively support the government education systems. LFE believes in the idea of working closely with the government bodies to co-create and co-develop different models - in the areas of officer development, teacher support and student learning. We have constituted a research vertical at LFE with a two-fold intention of influencing larger discourse in education by publishing sectoral reports, and of building a strong internal discipline towards monitoring & measuring our work - it’s been quite a learning journey! Projects & Programs Year 2019 is a pivoting year for LFE. Our work was predominantly seen as running multiple projects across geographies and government bodies. However, over the course of the last few months, we have realised that LFE’s work needs to be targeted towards addressing some of the systemic issues grappling poor learning outcomes. It is with that intention, LFE will be shifting to a programs approach this year - with Advisory & Advocacy; Officer Development; Teacher Support and Student Learning being the four programmatic pillars in the organisation.

Outcomes from last year Last academic year was eventful for LFE in many ways. We have gained traction on multiple focus areas with the Maharashtra government - specifically in our ability to support the academic officers at SCERT and also our ability to leverage technology in teacher training, and also effective e-content access through DIKSHA. We are finding different ways to strengthen the data monitoring, usage and evaluation mechanisms within the organisation. LFE continued successful initiatives in selection and professional development of officers, as well as advising on policy drafts.

Our work in embracing technology: Scaled DIKSHA across 150k users; and piloted Blended MOOC with 585 teachers across 06 districts.

Our work with the local bodies in Pune Municipal Corporation (PMC) in partnership with Pune City Connect (PCC) and with the Nashik Zilla Parishad has also seen some positive movement. Our Nashik work has pushed our learning around district transformation models and our understanding of the key levers of change in a ‘scale-unit’ of district. Across all our projects, we are also observing a significant financial investment from the governments - over the last 2 years around 70% of project costs (to the tune of 10 cr INR) in terms of materials, infrastructure and resources were put in by different government bodies that LFE works closely with. Developing 20 Sahyogis, reaching out to 1100 teachers across 178 PMC schools impacting 45,000 Grade 3-8 students

Supporting 248 Nashik Zilla Parishad Officers to develop 11,880 teachers impacting about 2.79 lakh students

Partnerships At LFE we have approached our partnerships with s spirit of long term and mutual alignment rooted in strengthening the public education systems. Last 2 years has been a great learning experience working alongside some of the most creative and impactful organisations across the world. We have released 2 research reports in partnership with 3-D Program for Women & Girls and with Shyamchi Aai Foundation. We are currently publishing a report on ‘Systems Diagnostics of Khed Taluka’ along with Forbes Marshall Foundation. LFE is also working closely with Centre for Sustainable Development, Earth Institute at Columbia University to outline the e-content creation and usage guidelines and conduct research on the digital schools in Maharashtra.

It's such a wonderful time to invest and be invested in working with governments. We believe a lot of progressive reforms are being contemplated by the governments directly aligned to improving the quality of learning outcomes. We are excited about where we want to go in the next 5 years, we wish to validate 5 models across 3 states in India, impacting about 15 million students studying in government schools! At LFE, we are constantly looking for opportunities to grow, partner and create a meaningful impact. In our strive to help improve the effectiveness of government systems, we are fortunate enough to have amazing individuals and organisations who have been guiding us on this path. We are overwhelmed by the kindness and support of our Board of Directors, Advisory Board, Funders & Government Partners who have been with us throughout this journey for the past two years. We’d also like to take this opportunity to thank you for your trust, guidance and encouragement over the last two years. Thank you for believing in our young team and in our beliefs to reach our audacious mission. We admire your support over the last two years and looking forward to celebrating many more successful years with you! With Love & Regards, Team LFE, Siddesh & Madhukar