Expression of Interest: Systemic Reform toward Inclusive Education for Children with Disabilities

Systemic Reform toward Inclusive Education for Children with Disabilities

Photo: Prabhat Education Foundation

There are several challenges that children from underserved communities face in accessing quality education. These increase multifold when it comes to Children with Disabilities (CwD) from disadvantaged sections. At Wipro Foundation, we believe that strengthening the public education system to enable inclusive education catering to diverse learning needs of learners is the key to address issues of access, exclusion and segregation that children with disabilities often face. Apart from access to schools, this entails the availability of a host of other enabling factors like teacher training, changes in attitudes, flexible curricula, creating accessible environments, differentiated teachinglearning practices, use of assistive technology, community support, access to healthcare, nutrition, etc.

Wipro Foundation’s Systemic Reform toward Inclusive Education for Children with Disabilities (Ed for CwD-SR) grants support organizations that specifically work toward systemic improvement to make public education (schools and anganwadis) more inclusive in terms of curriculum, pedagogy, teachinglearning materials, culture, accessibility and various other school practices. The grant’s specific focus is on systemic reform in the early childhood education system by supporting early intervention practices.

Photo: Feathers

Our grants aim to help organizations deepen their existing capacities and/or build on these to take their work to the next level. This could mean any of the following:

Build a core team to work on inclusive education for children with disabilities. An ideal team would include people from an education background as well as domain experts

Building capabilities in specific areas of focus within education for children with disabilities by working on the ground with support from experienced organizations, resources and people.

Build capacity to work in school education and the early childhood education system, particularly to enable inclusive education and early intervention in the public education system, through on-the-ground work and capacity building.

For organizations already working with the public education system, consolidating the work done so far into approaches and models of engagement that can be expanded, scaled, and shared.

Building capacities to become a resource partner for other organizations in a specific area of focus/expertise within the domain of inclusive education for children with disabilities.

Photos: Association for the Welfare of Persons with a Mental Handicap (top left), Prabhat Education Foundation (bottom left) and Urmi Foundation

We support organizations th

Financial Grants: Our financial support is aimed at enabling organizations to work in a focused manner to improve the quality of education for children with disabilities in schools, in geographies of their choice. The grants could be for developing a core team in education, helping the core team gain on-the-ground experience to work with children with disabilities, teachers, special educators, schools, resource rooms and other relevant stakeholders in the education system, and for developing sound, practical and scalable solutions in their geographies of work.

Opportunities forCapacity Building: To support our partners’ needs for their continuous learning, we actively facilitate formal and informal opportunities for capacity building through diverse modes. These include short courses, workshops, communities of practice, etc. on a wide range of educational and organizational topics. These opportunities are open to all partners, irrespective of the financial support provided

Mentoring Support:Since some of our early-stage partners might need sustained support on educational and operational aspects of their interventions, we also facilitate mentoring through established resource organizations or resource persons with significant experience in the education domain.

Our Partner Network: Our partner network is the outcome of a conscious effort to build a civil society ecosystem in school education. This network offers several peer-learning opportunities and partner initiated collaborative forums across organizations and individuals working in diverse geographies and contexts These organizations and individuals have experience and expertise in a wide range of educational issues and domains. Access to this network is an integral part of our partnerships.

Photo: Children with Disabilities Communities of Practice Group (Wipro Education Partners' Forum 2022)

Guiding Principles

Demonstrated Capacities and Commitment:The program supports organizations with serious, long-term commitment to education for children with disabilities as demonstrated through their past engagements

Clear Organizational Objectives and Structures:The program aims to facilitate the development of stable educational CSOs that can engage with inclusive education in the disability space in the long-term. Further, the aims and objectives in the domain of inclusive education for children with disabilities are expected to align with the organization’s overall vision and objectives. Structures and processes which facilitate smooth functioning toward organizational and program objectives should also be in place.

Direct Engagement with Class/School Issues:While issues outside schools and classrooms, such as those related to therapies, community, nutrition/health, etc., are essential for effective education, we believe that to create effective educational CSOs that can have a systemic impact, a core education team that engages directly with children, teachers and other key stakeholders of the school to support inclusive education is critical.

Focused Approach:Education for children with disabilities requires some degree of specialized knowledge. Organizations should focus on a few closely related challenges of education for children with disabilities/ inclusive education.

Balanced Teams:To develop and sustain over the long run, organizations must have balanced teams with members who can provide constructive feedback and complement each other’s strengths and weaknesses.

Photo: Association for the Welfare of Persons with a Mental Handicap

Selection Criteria

To effectively execute projects in our chosen areas of work requires us to partner with credible organizations that comply broadly with the criteria listed below:

Should be a registered non-profit organization, meeting statutory obligations such as 80G, 12A, CSR registration, along with a minimum of 3 years of work experience in education for children with disabilities;

Should comprise of a strong committed team with ample experience in the domain;

Willingness to work with the public system to bring systemic reform in enabling inclusive education for children with disabilities;

Should show a willingness to engage with relevant stakeholders to benefit the impacted community;

Preference is given to organizations working with children from underserved communities.

Selection Process

The selection process involves the following steps:

The interested organization submits an online application.

Shortlisted organizations are contacted to provide a detailed proposal

Wipro Foundation team gets in touch with the organization for further clarification and/or field visits.

A detailed proposal is presented to the review committee after due diligence

The decision on the grant is conveyed to the applicant via email.

Please note that the entire process is likely to take a few months.

Last Date to Apply: March 9, 2023

Apply Here: Expression of Interest

Wipro Foundation represents the Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) initiatives of Wipro Limited. Going back over two decades, we focus on social initiatives in Education, Primary Healthcare, Ecology and Disaster Response.

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