School Assessment for School Improvement (SASI) initiative, is a revolutionary step taken by Idara-e-Taleem-o-Aagahi (ITA). With the goal of becoming Pakistan's premier monitoring and evaluation system, it is a first-of-its-kind service in the nation.
The idea was launched by Baela Raza Jamil, Trustee/Advisor at Idara-e-Taleem-o-Aagahi in 2012, formally initiated in July linked with the pioneer Micro-Credit Rating International Limited (M-CRIL) India. Established with the ideology of addressing the dire quality of education in marginalized schools, the initiative was launched to focus on ‘teaching quality' by monitoring and evaluating a school's overall structure. School managers for profit and not for profit have little insight about the workings of their institutions- beyond profit or beyond the 'good' they may be doing.
Many low-cost schools have the potential to become good-quality sustainable enterprises but need to learn more about them and their service delivery. Thus with expertise and guidance from international consultants, a 6-dimensional assessment framework with a specialized toolkit was framed for checking standards in core areas instrumental to quality. Along with identifying gaps, recommendations and improvement is also outlined by the company in the form of connections and linkages to renowned service providers. These improvement institutions are from diverse spheres and provide numerous products like commercial and microfinance, e-Learning solutions, teacher trainings, learning material, health and environment awareness products in schools and capacity-building programs for students, teachers and management.
In June 2013, SASI successfully launched its program across Sindh and Punjab with its pilot findings on the low-cost schools sector. The program's first publication on the 25 schools assessed presented a rigorous analysis on the teaching & learning environment in schools, student learning levels, school structure and facilities and the financial sustainability.
With expansion underway, SASI is increasing its operations and branching all over Pakistan with new synergies and more and more schools.
