The Centre for Learning Resources (CLR) was established in Pune in 1984. It is a unit of The Society for Educational Improvement and Innovation (SEII), a non-profit institution registered under the Societies Registration Act of 1860, the Bombay Public Trust Act of 1950 and the Foreign Contribution Regulation Act of 1976.It is legally allowed to receive foreign funds as it is also registered under the Foreign Contribution Regulation Act (FCRA) of 1976. Donations to the SEII from Indian organisations and citizens are tax-exempt under Section 80-G of the Income Tax Act. We work under the name and style of Centre for Leaning Resources (CLR).

Aims and Objectives of the Organisation

i) building the capacities of those who deliver the programmes, such as teachers, supervisors, and more senior officers,

ii) providing high quality academic resources, such as curricula, teaching learning materials, print, audio and video resources etc. and

iii) providing support to government departments for programme strategy and implementation processes.

Through our focus on these areas, we seek to help the public education systems think through their programme strategies better, design better programmes and deliver better programmes.Our major content areas are in:

i) Early Childhood Care, Development and Education,

ii) Elementary Education, especially the learning of English in regional medium schools and

iii) Learning of English by young adults, who have passed out of the school system but haven’t acquired a good base in the language. 

Goals

The expansion of elementary education and early childhood education in India has often not been matched by a similar concern for the quality of teaching and learning. This adversely impacts the largest sections of the underprivileged communities and results in millions of very young children being deprived of care and education, school dropouts and dismal learning levels in school going children.

Our primary goal is to support government (and non-government) organizations working in rural and urban areas on large scale in early childhood care, development and education (ECCDE) and elementary education (EE) to achieve sustainable improvement in teaching and learning. Towards this, we aim to enhance the capacity-building skills within the government systems in areas of pedagogy, programme strategy and critical management and leadership skills.
Our core approach involves a decentralized, multi-layer, multi-cycle capacity-building process that seeks to achieve greater performance at each level of the system's cascade in areas of teaching, training, supportive supervision and coaching, planning, reflection and problem-solving.

Main Activities

Our key activities include:

1. Systemic capacity-building aimed at improving quality of early childhood education in Anganwadi Centres 
2. Systemic capacity-building aimed at improving quality of English language learning in elementary schools 
3. Systemic capacity-building aimed at improving quality of home and centre-based caregiving practises for children under 6 years 
4. Ongoing research to support systematic iterative improvements in programs and build an evidence base for advocacy efforts

Consultancy in curriculum development, educational project design, academic and other research inputs to schools, NGO's and government agencies, funding organizations, and international bodies.

CLR has been working in the domains of Early Childhood Care and Development (ECCD), Early Childhood Education (ECE) and Elementary Education since 1984 in several states in India. It has supported a wide range of government organizations and NGOs across the country including Maharashtra, Chhattisgarh, Jharkhand, Bihar, Uttarakhand, Uttar Pradesh, Andhra Pradesh, Karnataka, West Bengal, Tamil Nadu, Gujarat and Rajasthan. Offshore engagements have included Indonesia and Nepal.

CLR has developed curricula, training and learning materials for several government departments i.e. Education, Women and Child Development, Health, and Social Justice to support delivery of quality programs. CLR has also worked closely with these departments toward leadership and implementation capacity building.

CLR team comes from a variety of educational and professional backgrounds, including psychology, early childhood development, education, social work, community mobilization, leadership and management. Their expertise lies, in designing and implementing large-scale capacity building interventions, as well as in conceptualising and conducting research that supports and strengthens policy and implementation across large scale government systems.

A corporate can aid CLR’s vision of supporting large scale government (and non-government) organizations that reach majority of the disadvantaged children in India, to achieve sustainable improvement in their processes and consequent child development and learning.

For more information, please visit Link.