Research Reports
Research Reports
An important element of our research consists of primary education, covering both institutional aspects of the school system as well as social forces surrounding the idea and practice of basic education. In particular, teacher autonomy and effort, the role of teachers’ unions in expanding educational opportunities of the underprivileged, the disturbing growth of supplementary tutoring even to learn the basics, curriculum overload, and the importance of the Integrated Child Development Scheme and the school meal programme in combating child hunger in school constitute some of our core research activities
This section contains published reports of research-in-action projects undertaken by Pratichi over the two decades of its existence
Containing in-depth interviews of a 150 of beneficiary women was submitted in March 2024 ...
Viewed through the lens of women’s capabilities, this field-based research seeks to elicit reactions from women themselves about a cash transfer scheme meant for their well-being, namely, Lakshmir Bhandar, recently rolled out by the Government of West Bengal ...
Drawing on fieldwork across districts of West Bengal, this research examines how far the Duare Srakar scheme bridges the last-mile gap in welfare delivery and secures the entitlements and rights of citizens ...
Keeping the bio-medical phenomenon of the COVID-19 pandemic as its backdrop, this research, with a focus on West Bengal, centres the role of key public services and social policies as well as concerted governmental and public action in general, in both ‘normal’ and ‘crisis’ times. View Report ...
This field-based study assesses the Duare Sarkar initiative, introduced by the Government of West Bengal in December 2020, for door-step delivery of state-run welfare schemes and asks whether this participatory space encourages citizens’ footfalls at these sites and enable them to make citizenly claims ...
During the COVID-19 and lockdown-constrained time, drawing on available quantitative and qualitative investigative tools including telephone surveys across the districts of the Indian state of West Bengal, this report examines the vim and vigour of the Public Grievance Redressal Cell in operation in the state to raise larger questions of governmental responsiveness and accountability as well as citizens’ awareness and satisfaction regarding the public grievance mechanism ...
Pratichi Institute in collaboration with the Asiatic Society, Kolkata, had undertaken the work of preparing a detailed report on the socio-economic, political and cultural profile of the 40 notified Adivasi tribes of West Bengal that constitute 47 per cent of the overall Scheduled Tribe population. The report of this unique ethnographic study – Living World of the Adivasis of West Bengal: An Ethnographic Exploration – was completed and formally released by Professor Amartya Sen at a function organised at the Vidyasagar Hall of Asiatic Society on 19 February 2020. View Report ...
This study on ‘public’ schools, under Kolkata Primary Schools Council (KPSC) and Kolkata Municipal Corporation (KMC) was actually derived from the larger framework of the on-going project – “Achieving Quality of Education through Enhanced Teacher Capabilities”– steered by Pratichi (India) Trust and funded by the Tech Mahindra Foundation (TMF). It draws on the collaborative spirit of many school teachers in the city of Kolkata. The Pratichi research team has striven to show that while public schools are essential for equity goals as they cater mainly to underprivileged children, there is need for major improvement in the quality of education these schools provide. View Report ...
This study attempts to explore the ways by which primary school children of Himachal Pradesh are expected to learn languages – namely Hindi and English – within the formal setup of their schools. While Hindi is the language that is rooted within children’s familiar and familial zones, English is a foreign language. However, the demand for learning English is very high. It emerged from classroom observations that textbooks were the sacrosanct resource for teaching and learning of English and Hindi in primary schools – although they were of questionable quality. A set of recommendations that emerged from teachers’ interviews highlight the importance which the teaching community attributes to the use of local dialects, and a variety of reading formats which should be used in classrooms to promote the quintessence of multilingualism ...
The Pratichi Institute was involved in the preparation of the second Tripura Human Development Report for over two years – through 2015, 2016 and 2017. The research team endeavoured to measure advancement or regression or even inertia in the condition of people of Tripura by examining issues like whether they had enough to eat, decent housing, apt healthcare facilities, suitable employment opportunities, proper access to education, entitlement to a meaningful community life, the right to vote and the freedom of choice. The initial draft of the report was presented to the different departments of the Government of Tripura and their comments resulted in several rounds of editing. In the latter half of December 2017, we received the final comments from the Government of Tripura, along with a request for the preparation of the final version of the report ...
