Periodic reviews are fundamental to maintaining accountability and driving continuous improvement in any system. In the context of India’s education system, these reviews play a crucial role in ensuring that planned initiatives are on track to achieve their intended outcomes. By regularly assessing progress, identifying challenges and implementing corrective actions, stakeholders can maintain focus on the initiative’s key performance indicators (KPIs) and drive sustained improvements. The review process helps create a culture of accountability, where every stakeholder is responsible for their contributions towards the system’s overall goals.

The NIPUN Bharat Mission Guidelines (2021) mention that states should work towards creating a robust review structure and an IT-based system for child-wise tracking at each level of governance (state, district and block). The guidelines further recommend that  states and their  districts use data-backed planning and tools for actionable review meetings. In alignment with these guidelines, the NIPUN Haryana Mission has established District Project Implementation Units (DPIUs) in each district, which are responsible for generating salience around the NIPUN Bharat Mission by clarifying goals, providing additional capacity to build academic and governance muscle and anchoring the respective district’s review process on critical mission KPIs. 

A district review meeting in Haryana is held every month in all districts. The state’s NIPUN data dashboard is used extensively during these meetings to anchor the meeting agenda for selected KPIs, critical to the mission’s success, including the administration of weekly assessments, student learning outcome data, usage of the student competency tracker, usage of student workbooks and teacher guides, print-richness classrooms and the conduction of DPIU monthly review meeting. Additionally, district scorecards are released every month by the department, outlining each district’s performance on critical KPIs. These scorecards contribute to creating accountability and transparency in the system by comparatively assessing the performance of districts on measurable KPIs and compliances during the reviews.

To streamline the review process, a review template is shared with district and block project implementation units, which they fill out to document discussions and next steps from the review meeting. After the block and district review meetings, the State Project Implementation Unit (SPIU) conducts a state-level review to ensure comprehensive monitoring and feedback To strengthen and build rigor of review meetings, the tasks at the  pre-, during and post-meeting processes are tracked and monitored. 

To simplify this, the districts are provided with a checklist that is vital to keep track of the meeting processes. 

• The pre-meeting checklist supports the districts and blocks in tasks that are leading up to the meeting and are largely preparatory in nature. During this phase, districts/blocks are required to gather relevant information to be discussed, set agenda, apprise the DEEO (District Elementary Education Officer) and FLN coordinator on the standard operating procedures (SOPs) of the meeting and notify the participants/members on the agenda and flow of the meeting. 

• The during meeting checklist lists out items critical to ensuring compliance and quality of the meeting. The objective is to prevent deviations and track the flow of the meetings by the guidelines with constant nudges. During the meeting, the focus is on agenda-driven discussion with a comprehensive overview of the district’s performance with data-backed approaches. 

• Finally, the post-meeting checklist focuses on ensuring feedback and that action plans are timely disseminated  with the right people for desired output. This checklist demands the state to create documentation in the form of meeting minutes, emphasising on key decisions and task allocation discussed during the meeting. The minutes are prepared in a detailed, comprehensive manner to anchor stakeholders to the procedural accuracy of the SOPs discussed. In addition, an actionables’ tracker is also created, outlining the action plans and task allocation to each committee member. This provides a structured way to review and monitor the completion of actionables before the next review meeting.

The SPIU (State Project Implement Unit) team, composed of members from the state working with two districts each, extends its support to ensure a rigorous review of the districts. The SPIU member is a key link between the state dissemination and district adoption of reform and is responsible for ensuring that any rollout at the state level is implemented in the district with the highest fidelity.

The SPIU team’s role begins at the pre-meeting stage where they assist in apprising the DPIU Chair (District Elementary Education Officer) and District FLN Coordinator on the important meeting agenda items. 

Doing this month-on-month aids in building a behavioral shift in stakeholders toward making well-planned and well-executed reviews a habit. During the meeting, the SPIU team member, with the support of the FLN coordinator, provides nudges at the right points to ensure all agenda points are met and accountability is established. Lastly, the SPIU team member, with support from the district FLN coordinator ensures that the meeting is properly documented and minutes are sent out. The SPIU team, thus, offers systemic support at various stages of the review, supporting the district-level officials at various stages. This ensures the system becomes self-reliant and well-equipped with the necessary resources and knowledge to conduct constructive reviews. 

Fostering structured review meeting processes are essential for the success of the NIPUN Haryana  Mission and overall educational improvements in the state, paving the way for every child to achieve quality foundational literacy and numeracy.