Learning and solving problems together: Promising shifts in educational norms in Hisar district (Haryana, India)

Yue-Yi Hwa and Heather Leigh Kayton

Changing your own habits is hard. Changing the norms that shape interactions between many different people is even harder. But such changes in norms are essential in order to shift the status quo where many children who spend time in classrooms are still shut out from the worlds of reading and mathematics. 

Helping children to cultivate the skills that will unlock these worlds of knowledge is a complex task requiring ongoing coordination between multiple actors. Research by political scientist Akshay Mangla suggests that bureaucracies are more likely to perform complex tasks well if they have ‘deliberative’ norms that foster flexible, collaborative problem solving – rather than the more typical legalistic norms of bureaucracies that emphasise adherence to rules. Similarly, a new study of outstanding districts in Rwanda’s education system by Christine Beggs and Sheena Bell found that bureaucratic norms in these districts were oriented toward deliberation and problem solving. 

(Beyond education, others have made the case that complex tasks require problem-driven, iterative approaches and open-ended, mutual accountability.) 

Pedagogical change in Hisar district 

We recently saw exciting indications of problem-solving norms during a two-day visit to Hisar district, in the Indian state of Haryana. We were hosted by colleagues from the Language and Learning Foundation (LLF).  

Hisar is one of LLF’s three ‘demonstration districts’ in Haryana. In demonstration districts, a district-level LLF team works closely with the district government to provide a range of supports oriented toward improving foundational literacy and numeracy (FLN), such as supplementary instructional materials, training and coaching for teacher mentors, and tools for assessment, monitoring, review, and management. This work is aligned with National Initiative for Proficiency in Reading with Understanding and Numeracy (NIPUN) Haryana, which launched in 2021 as the state’s implementation of the national NIPUN Bharat mission to ensure that all children master foundational literacy and numeracy by grade 3. LLF, together with the Central Square Foundation and the Sampark Foundation, have been providing technical support to NIPUN Haryana. 

In all four primary schools that we visited, we saw language and mathematics lessons that we wish we had experienced in the lower primary grades ourselves. In mathematics classes, we saw teachers using interactive pedagogical techniques and incorporating practical teaching materials to engage all students in the lessons. In language lessons, teachers implemented strategies that encouraged all students to participate orally and to read and interact with texts in creative ways. It wasn’t just our perception: in one school, when we asked the headteacher about what had changed under NIPUN, the first thing she said was that classroom activities were now much more joyful and practical than before. 

An enabling environment for pedagogical change  

Underlying these exciting improvements in classroom pedagogy in the lower primary grades is a mutually reinforcing set of factors that jointly foster norms of collaborative problem solving for literacy and numeracy Crucially, these factors cut across different levels of Hisar’s school system. 

1. A limited number of clear, consistently communicated goals

A prominent feature of our visits to schools and government offices throughout Hisar was the consistent message that emerged: everyone, from district leadership to classroom teachers, views developing foundational literacy and numeracy skills as their shared mission.  

This collective commitment is reinforced through a focused set of goals that are clearly communicated across the system. These goals for each grade are visibly displayed in many classrooms, which serves as a constant reminder of the shared priorities for teachers and students. During district and block-level meetings, discussions are regularly centred on these core FLN targets, so that progress can be reviewed and strategies adjusted accordingly. This consistent messaging of specific goals ensures all stakeholders remain aligned on what success looks like at each grade level.  

Thes thoughtful incorporation of these goals into the instructional materials provided to teachers creates a cohesive connection between high-level objectives and daily classroom practice. This connection also helps teachers to see how their lesson activities directly contribute to the broader mission of improving foundational skills.  

A poster in a classroom showing the NIPUN Haryana foundational literacy and numeracy goals for grade 2. (Photo credit: Heather Leigh Kayton)

2. A comprehensive suite of instructional materials supporting effective pedagogical techniques

A critical factor supporting the pedagogical change that we observed in Hisar is the availability of well-designed instructional materials. These materials provide teachers with the practical tools for implementing the activity-based approaches that NIPUN encourages. The instructional materials include teacher guides aligned with student workbooks that follow a structured and cohesive plan to develop foundational skills (while considering contextual realities such as multigrade classrooms). This alignment supports consistent progression towards learning goals at each step along the foundational learning path.  

We saw teachers making use of instructional materials to create practical, interactive and relevant lessons that were engaging for students. In numeracy lessons, teachers utilised a wide range of tangible learning aids such as counting beads, number charts, representative money, and model clocks to support engagement and interactive learning. These hands-on tools help to make abstract mathematical concepts into more practical lessons about everyday life. In literacy lessons, teachers employed strategies that encourage oral participation from all students. Dedicated time is allocated for each child to read aloud in class, developing confidence and fluency. Teachers also actively guided students in discussions about the stories they read in lessons, fostering comprehension skills and helping support vocabulary development.  

In the schools we visited, teachers and students not only used officially provided instructional materials (left), but also actively created supplementary teaching and learning materials as well as creative posters and displays in their classrooms (right). As one coordinator noted, this process of co-creation gives teachers and students a sense of ownership over their learning environment. (Photo credit: Heather Leigh Kayton)

The materials also embed a weekly improvement cycle, allowing teachers to systematically assess student progress, identify gaps, and adjust their teaching accordingly. This iterative approach reinforces the norms of interactive, goal-oriented instruction that the NIPUN mission in Hisar aims to establish. 

3. Improvement-oriented ‘supportive supervision’ rather than input-focused hierarchical monitoring

During our field visit, we heard both a teacher mentor and a Language and Learning Foundation team member describe the relationship between teacher mentors and the school as ‘supportive supervision.’ According to one of these teacher mentors, school visits by government officials under such supportive supervision contrast markedly with pre-NIPUN days. Previously, school visits focused primarily on checking the presence of inputs, such as whether midday meals were being served or whether paperwork was being maintained.  

Today, there is much more attention to the classroom, with lesson observations and feedback discussions taking place regularly. Hisar’s foundational literacy and numeracy coordinator (see below for more on his role) noted that there has been a shift in classroom expectations as well: from simply covering textbook content, toward achieving learning goals in a more focused, methodical way. He said that teachers regularly reach out to him with problems and challenges that they face, and he ensures that either he or a colleague meets with them to resolve these problems. 

4. A strong support network with designated government officers and embedded implementation partners

Hisar’s NIPUN initiative benefits from a well-structured support network combining both government staff and support staff from the local Language and Learning Foundation team.  

Within the government structure, government-appointed teacher mentors each support about 10 schools, allowing for regular visits. This ratio also enables the teacher mentors to develop meaningful supportive relationships with teachers and address specific classroom challenges. Each of the nine blocks within Hisar district also designates one teacher mentor as the foundational literacy and numeracy nodal officer who can handle issues that teacher mentors are not able to resolve. Teacher mentors can also consult block resource coordinators, who are subject specialists. At the district level, an FLN coordinator oversees the initiative, regularly visiting schools to observe classroom practice and provide feedback. Selected through a competitive government recruitment process, this coordinator represents the highest level of dedicated FLN oversight in the district. This structure creates a clear path for supportive problem-solving for any issues that might arise. 

As an implementation partner, the LLF team has become deeply embedded in the local education ecosystem in Hisar, with academic coordinators supporting schools across multiple blocks. These LLF coordinators develop instructional materials, offer administrative support and maintain strong relationships with government officials at different levels. The integration of the LLF staff into the district’s education community has created complementary pathways alongside government structures for teachers to receive support dedicated to the NIPUN mission in Hisar.

5. Meetings incorporating collective problem solving and practice-based teacher training

In Hisar, routine monthly meetings at the block and cluster levels for teachers and teacher mentors go far beyond administrative checklists. The first 90 minutes of every meeting is earmarked for academic matters. During these 90 minutes, there is an emphasis not only on raising problems in teachers’ or government officers’ academic work, but also on solving these problems. To keep discussions on track, each meeting has a clear agenda. Also, each meeting focuses on one or two FLN-related targets from the academic plan. Performance on these targets is reviewed at the next meeting.  

Another element of these routine meetings that facilitates pedagogical change is that this 90-minute academic portion includes activity-based training for teachers and government officers. This practice-based training mirrors the pedagogical style intended for the classroom and often uses the same materials that students will use in the classroom. Additionally, teacher mentors also meet weekly, which further equips them to offer in-school pedagogical support to teachers and headteachers. 

Note: this is not an exhaustive nor definitive list of enabling factors in Hisar. Other contributing elements that we saw include a District Elementary Education Officer who very much fits the description of a ‘mission-driven bureaucrat’ and an app-based data management system that teacher mentors use on school visits to collect monitoring data, lesson observation details, and dipstick learning assessment data. Moreover, our two-day visit only allowed us to scratch the surface of this unfolding FLN reform. 

Looking ahead: possibilities for deepening, scaling, and sustaining learning-oriented norms? 

These promising shifts in Hisar toward norms of collective, iterative problem solving aimed at cultivating children’s foundational literacy and numeracy are tremendously encouraging. But there is still much work to be done. In the 2024 ASER survey, only 58.1% of children in grades 3 to 5 in Hisar district could read a grade 2-level text, and only 64.5% could subtract with 2-digit numbers. 

Moreover, there are open questions around the extent to which these learning-oriented norms can be scaled, sustained, and deepened:  

• Deepening: While we saw many promising indications of real pedagogical change, the Language and Learning Foundation has observed that there is still limited uptake among teachers of certain high-impact teaching strategies. Under a What Works Hub for Global Education grant, LLF are currently collaborating with behavioural science experts at Busara to explore the question of how to improve teachers’ adoption of such pedagogical strategies. Other unresolved challenges that LLF is exploring in Haryana include how to improve teaching and learning in multigrade classrooms. 

• Scaling: As noted above, Hisar is an LLF ‘demonstration district’, which receives additional support to explore what is possible in foundational literacy and numeracy improvement. How scalable are some of these shifts in pedagogical practice and shared norms beyond Hisar? This is an open question that the LLF team are clear-sighted about. For example, they noted that elements such as standing agendas at meetings may be more replicable; but gradually building up the technical, social, and professional skills of teacher mentors may be harder to replicate without resource-intensive support. 

• Sustaining: The additional supports provided to demonstration districts are not meant to be permanent. When these additional supports are rolled back, will this shift toward problem-solving, FLN-focused, classroom-prioritising norms will persist without the support of a dedicated LLF team that has built buy-in among government decision makers at all levels? 

While much needs to be done before these complex questions and challenges are resolved, the visible indications of a gradual shift toward learning-oriented norms suggests that children in Hisar schools have as good a chance as any of mastering foundational literacy and numeracy. 

We are grateful to the Language and Learning Foundation team, including but not limited to Dhir Jhingran, Shivakshi Rana, Tushar Pundir, Neha Kanojia, Ompal Dumoliya and Shilpa Kumari for hosting us on this field visit. 

Hwa, YY. & Kayton, H. L. 2025. Learning and solving problems together: Promising shifts in educational norms in Hisar district (Haryana, India). What Works Hub for Global Education. Blog. 2025/012. https://doi.org/10.35489/BSG-WhatWorksHubforGlobalEducation-BL_2025/012