During the past 11 years since the Azim Premji Foundation (APF, regst. 1998) began its interventions in primary education, it has undertaken 12 initiatives across the country. They include:
• Enrolment Drive (Karnataka and Andhra Pradesh), 2000. A programme launched in 1,300 villages in Kolar and Mandya districts and 500 villages in Nalgonda district of Andhra Pradesh to persuade out-of-school children to return to class. In two years 14,000 out-of-school children resumed classes.
• Accelerated Learning Program (Karnataka), 2001-03. Objective: to bridge competency gap of children in 1,016 schools in seven districts of north-east Karnataka. 130,000 children were covered in two years, of whom 60 percent achieved targeted competencies.
• Vidya Chethana (Karnataka), 2001-03. APF promoted primaries in 150 school-less habitations in north-east Karnataka.
• Policy Planning Unit (Karnataka), 2003. A collaboration between APF and the government of Karnataka to form a PPU to research community participation, quality of education and policy related issues. Management development and school leadership programmes offered to 55,000 education officials.
• Computer-aided learning in 16 states, 20,000 schools. APF is the largest developer of digital learning resources in 18 Indian languages used in over 20,000 government schools in 16 states by 2.5 million children.
• Learning Guarantee Program (Gujarat, Karnataka, Madhya Pradesh, Rajasthan, Uttarakhand), 2002. To introduce competency assessment in examination systems. Rolled out in 15 districts of five states. Adopted by Karnataka which introduced competency-based testing in all schools under the Karnataka School Quality Assessment programme.
• Child Friendly School Initiative (Karnataka), 2005. Introduced in 350 schools in Karnataka’s Yadgiri district.
• APRESt (Andhra Pradesh), 2005. Launched in five districts of AP to determine what kind of interventions have the highest probability of improving learning outcomes. Details available on the foundation website (http://www.azimpremjifoundation.org).
• Migrant labour children education (Karnataka), 2006. Two construction site schools established in Bangalore for children of migrant labour. Objectives: to provide multi-lingual, multicultural and multigrade early childhood education and create long lasting desire in parents and children for schooling.
• Education Leadership Management Development Program (Karnataka), 2006. Over 60,000 school leaders across the state of Karnataka have benefited.
• Computer-aided learning research program (Chhattisgarh, Puducherry, Orissa), 2008. To provide learning material and joyful interactive pedagogies.
• Namma Shaale Program (Karnataka), 2007-10. To build bridges between local communities and schools.