Going inside real classrooms leads to practical understanding and immediate action
ALfA Worldwide
Ministry of Education, Maldives
We've signed an MoU with the Ministry of Education, Maldives, to enhance learning levels of children studying in all 213 government schools of the country. Hear Dr Abdullah Rasheed, the Minister of State for Education, Maldives, give his views on the transformative ALfA program.
Literacy Chicago, USA
In collaboration with Literacy Chicago, the ALfA English toolkit has been converted into videos. The program is being piloted with low-literacy adult learners from marginalized communities in Chicago, with impressive results. Experience the excitement of the first learner.
Kupanda Sisters, Guyana
A school in Guyana is taking up the 45 Days to FLN Challenge, benefitting around 200 children. The school is using the ALfA e-Learning materials to give its students a high-quality, low-carbon education.
Arca Beta, Peru
DEVI has conducted an online training for teachers for Arca Beta NGO, who are now implementing ALfA in their school in Iquitos, Peru. We hope that the impressive learning results will inspire more organisations to join the campaign.
PathYouth NGO, Kenya
We collaborated with Path Youth NGO to run a literacy and numeracy bootcamp for children in Mombassa using ALfA materials. Outcomes include improved skills for 102 children, increased learning motivation, enhanced teacher quality, and strengthened community support with volunteer teachers.
Malaysia
Teachers, principals & government officials gathered together from eight different countries to join an interactive workshop on the ALfA pedagogy, sowing the seeds for ALfA to bloom in South-East Asia. In Malaysia, we began an ALfA pilot in collaboration with Radiant Gems Preschool.
Philippines
Having partnered with Dawnbreakers Foundation to replicate the material in Filipino, they are now using it to teach in a remote area of Mindoro.
Trinidad & Tobago
We are partnering with El Dorado South Hindu School to trial ALfA.
Asia
- Philippines
- Maldives
- India
- Nepal
- Malaysia
North America
- USA
Latin America
- Peru
- Guyana
- Trinidad & Tobago
Africa
- Kenya
- Ghana
- Zimbabwe
Government School Empowerment
After successful implementation of its ALfA Disruptive FLN Program in the Shamli district of Uttar Pradesh, the department of school education has signed an MOU to implement this in 15 districts of Uttar Pradesh. So far we've expanded to 180 schools of Lucknow, Unnao and Barabanki districts.
Devi Sansthan has been working closely with the district administration to improve the learning levels of school students - initially in 10 schools, and then 200. The impressive results have attracted media attention, and have also been discussed in a recent book by Prof. Reimers of the Harvard Graduate School of Education.
Based on poor results in the National Achievement Survey (2017) Sambalpur was declared a low performing district. DEVI Sansthan has been working in 10 schools of Sambalpur since August 2022, with discussions underway to scale up the program across the district.
An MoU has been signed with the Department of Education, Chatra, Jharkhand to fill post-Covid FLN gaps of government school children of grades 1-5. In the first phase, 50 government schools will be covered followed by a district wide scale-up. Inspired by visionary leaders such as Rajnath Singh, DEVI will work with the district government to ensure literacy for all.
- Watch the minister’s speech on DEVI’s literacy program.
Adult Literacy
IIMPACT West Bengal
DEVI Sansthan is working with IIMPACT in two districts of West Bengal since August 2022. In the first phase, 1000 women have been taught the key skills of literacy and health & hygiene awareness, with a particular focus on young mothers.
HCL Foundation
The project is developing reading, writing and financial literacy skills among illiterate women who are part of Self-Help Groups (SHGs) formed by HCL Foundation. A one-month pilot implementation of the program was successfully completed in January 2022 with 1500 learners, leading to plans for scaling the program up.
Sahbhagi Shiksha Kendra
Since December 2018, DEVI Sansthan has been partnering with Sahbhagi Shiksha Kendra to enhance their adult literacy program in Sitapur district. 15 young, educated women are using the Global Dream toolkits to spread literacy. The target learners are primarily older women from SC and Muslim communities - a group with very low literacy rates.
Kurauni Village
The literacy program in Karauni village, on the outskirts of Lucknow, is a highly scalable community-based model. In 2015, 22 women were empowered with a literacy training, and went on to teach 180 women within the first few months. The impact has only escalated from there on, meaning that Kurauni is now almost fully literate.
Mizoram Adult Literacy Directorate
DEVI Sansthan is helping the Mizoram government work towards universal literacy. After helping replicate the ALfA toolkits into Mizo, we conducted an online training for master-trainers. In the first phase, 5000 learners are being covered from 3 districts: Aizawl, Mamit and Lawngtlai. The Mizoram school education department is now expressing interest in using the ALfA program for young learners.
ngos
Teach for India, Mumbai
Starting in November 2018, DEVI Sansthan launched a partnership with Teach for India schools in Mumbai. We provided training and literacy toolkits to empower schools to ensure all children learn to read well, in Hindi, Marathi and English. Some of the children also took up the materials to teach their family and community members.
Magic Bus Foundation
In August 2019, DEVI Sansthan began partnering with Magic Bus, which is setting up Community Learning Centres in a variety of rural and regional areas in states including Maharasthra, Tamil Nadu, and Telangana, as part of their ‘childhood to livelihood’ program. Among other activities, community learning centres are using DEVI’s literacy kits to help young people gain vital FLN skills.
Piramal Foundation
Devi Sansthan has signed an MOU with Piramal Foundation to enhance Foundational Literacy and Numeracy of around 50 million children across 112 Aspirational districts covering 27 Indian states. This exciting partnership will address the massive learning gaps of primary government school children caused due to nearly two years of school closures due to COVID-19.
community development
TB Challenge
Often the poor are unable to access the healthcare they need, due to the complexity and expensiveness of the medical system. Tuberculosis is rampant in many slums - people are more at risk of catching TB due to overcrowded conditions, generally poor health and under-nutrition. We help by taking people to hospitals, buying medicines, and giving nutritional support to patients.
Slum Empowerment
DEVI Sansthan is running holistic community empowerment programs in several urban poor communities in central Lucknow – the capital of Uttar Pradesh, India’s most populous state. DEVI’s slum community empowerment project is called MELA: Medical, Entitlements, Literacy Assistance. We help take people to hospital to receive proper treatment, and access their rights from the governments.
OneTara School
Are you passionate about making a difference in the lives of disadvantaged children? Join DEVI's OneTara School initiative. We will provide you training and learning resources that empower you to open an informal community school. Teach anyone, teach anywhere! The gift of literacy can make a lifetime of difference. Whether you teach 100 students - or even just one - you can make a huge impact.
Make Someone Literate This Summer!
Each One Teach One at least
With the ALfA toolkit you can teach someone to read in just 30 min per day x 30 days
each one teach one
City Montessori School
Every year since 2014, DEVI runs the Each One Teach One Campaign, in which school and college students use our literacy materials to teach an illiterate child or adult how to read. A five year MoU with CMS Lucknow means that 25,000 student volunteers (Grade 5-11) will participate in the campaign each year, adopting illiterate learners and helping them achieve Foundational Literacy and Numeracy (Grade 3 level).
Lucknow University
In August 2018, DEVI Sansthan launched a collaboration with the National Service Scheme of Lucknow University. We have been motivating and training college students to teach illiterate children and adults using the ALfA materials. Over 1,100 students from 15 colleges have taken the training, and 700 ALfA kits have been distributed.
City International School
Students of City International School, Lucknow have been a driving force behind the Each One Teach One campaign. Some are teaching the school's support staff, others their own maids. Along with the generous support of SBI Life, CIS has been working to help make children of nearby slums Chandan and Sugamau literate.
MS Education Academy
MS Education chose five teachers to become master trainers, who are working to spread the message of service to staff and students throughout MS Education and beyond. MS Education school and college students are a key part of the ‘Each One Teach One’ campaign. Their vision is a chain reaction of pass-it-on literacy: that some of the people who have learnt to read will in turn teach others the key skill of literacy.
Uttar Pradesh Middle Schools
In mid 2023, DEVI Sansthan signed an MOU with the Uttar Pradesh department of secondary education to partner together on a literacy program. School students will use the Literacy Now App to teach illiterate neighbours, relatives and community members reading, writing and basic arithmetic.
ALfA
Accelerating Learning for All
Accelerating Learning for All (ALfA) is a hands-on, activity-based, child-led, paired-learning pedagogy. It enables children to learn to read, write and do basic arithmetic in as little as 45 days. ALfA uses simple, short, highly visual modules to help children build from their existing knowledge of pictures, to decode and blend sounds from the very first day. In numeracy, children use a kinaesthetic to concrete to abstract approach to build deeper number sense.
Arabic
Bangla
Dhivehi
Dutch
English
Filipino
French
Mandarin
Nepali
Persian
Portuguese*
Serbian
Shona
Spanish
Swahili
Twi
Urdu
Yoruba
Somali*
Norwegian
* in development
Assamese
Bengali
Gujarati
Hindi
Kannada
Konkani*
Maithili
Marathi
Mizo
Odia
Punjabi
Tamil
Telugu
* in process
Implementation Geographies
ALfA is available in 30 languages, including most major Indian and International languages. It is proving highly effective in diverse contexts – from government schools to informal literacy centres, from the remote Amazon to dense slums. ALfA is scaling swiftly across North India, with results showing up in large-scale government assessments. Many research implementations internationally have also shown excellent impact at a smaller scale. Some major initiatives are shown below:
| Geography | Scale | Results so far | Reports |
|---|---|---|---|
| Uttar Pradesh, India | Implementation underway in 4 full districts (over 7,000 schools) | Government’s NIPUN Assessment Test showed that schools implementing ALfA were twice as likely to have 80% of students pass an FLN test. | view report |
| Himachal Pradesh, India | Implementation underway in 1,200 schools. MOU in place for state-wide (10,000 schools) | The proportion of children scoring les than 25% on the test dropped from 13% at the baseline, to 3% at the endline. | view report |
| Jammu, India | MOU in place for state-wide (10,000 schools) | Results awaited | view report |
| Ghana | 6 schools initially, now another 6 schools | 3-5x greater learning gains in treatment vs control schools | view report |
| Peru | 2 schools | At the baseline, only 32% of children were proficient in reading, writing & arithmetic. Reached 80% after 45 days. | view report |
| Maldives | 13 schools, with plans to scale up nationally | double learning gains in treatment vs control schools | view report |
Can you read this sentence? If so, you are literate.
Sometimes we take literacy for granted, but can you imagine what it would be like to not be able to read and write? Literacy is vital for people's social, emotional, and economic wellbeing. Yet there are still hundreds of millions around the world ‐ especially in Low and Middle Income Countries, including India ‐ who lack the key skills of reading, writing and doing basic arithmetic.
That's why we developed the Accelerating Learning for All (ALfA) program, which enables learners to become literate and numerate in just 3-5 months, compared to the traditional 3-5 years. Using a known-to-unknown approach which bypasses the need to learn the alphabet, ALfA unlocks the power of paired learning to teach the key skills of reading, writing and arithmetic.
Explore this page to understand the scale of the literacy crisis and learn how the revolutionary ALfA program works.
Benefits of Literacy
Literacy is vital to socio-economic well-being, at multiple levels:
- Expanding job opportunities. There is a strong positive correlation between literacy and income level, with literate people earning an estimated 40-70% more than their illiterate counterparts.
- Breaking inter-generational poverty. Parents who can read and write are more likely and able to send their kids to school.
- Boosting self-confidence. Literacy helps people feel more confident in themselves, more able to take initiative to improve their lives.
- Improving health. In developing countries, a child born to a literate mother is 50% more likely to survive past age 5, relative to a child born to an illiterate mother.
- Enhancing political rights. Literate people are generally more able to access information about current events, make up their own mind, and engage in the political process.
Read some of the stories of our learners to see what a difference literacy has made in their lives.
A Comparative Analysis: ALfA, TaRL and Structured Pedagogy
ALfA is a uniquely structured pedagogy which is highly cost effective, even compared to other 'FLN best buys'
| Feature | ALfA | TaRL | Structured Pedagogy |
|---|---|---|---|
| Core Approach | Paired learning, holistic framework, and scaffolded self-learning, provides structure with process. | Grouping students by level and focusing on core skills. | Standardized lesson plans and scripted teaching. |
| Teacher’s Roles | Empowers teachers with concise triggers and ongoing support. Teacher load is reduced as students help each other in pairs and can also check each other’s work. | Teachers may have a heavy load as they need to teach separate learning groups. | Requires strict adherence to scripted methods. Teachers given limited professional autonomy, instead told what to do every day of the week. |
| Holistic Development | Develops 21st-century skills (8Cs) through random paired learning – children develop communication, collaboration, citizenship skills. | Differentiated learning which can create a fixed mindset about the ability. | Focused primarily on academic content delivery rather than holistic development. |
| Cost | $4 per child Leverages local resources and requires minimal training time. | $20-$27 per child Resources vary by implementation. More significant training required. | $8 per child Detailed scripting and material requirements. |
| Speed & Efficacy | Effect Sizes: 0.23-0.89 (India, 40 days, 2022-23) Weighted average: 0.39-0.58 | Effect Sizes: 0.08-0.7 (India, 50 days, combination of studies mainly from 2005-2014) Weighted average: 0.15-0.28 | Effect size: 0.13 Generally longer-term implementations required |
ALfA Pedagogy
The ALfA program is more than just a set of books, it is a way of teaching. This groundbreaking pedagogy enables learners to become foundationally literate and numerate in just 45 days. It is based on three key principles:
Paired Learning
When students sit in pairs, even the shiest one becomes an active learner. Paired learning is more enjoyable, leads to better learning outcomes.
Known to Unknown
ALfA flips the traditional ‘A for Apple’ on its head, moving from known (picture) to unknown (letter). Children read words from the first lesson, without wasting months on the alphabet.
Asking Questions
Students make their own questions and ask each other, which engages them more deeply in the learning process and is crucial to developing 21st century skills.
ALfA & 21st century skills and traits
ALfA seamlessly integrates the 5C Skills leading to 4C Traits of a twenty-first century learner. These 9Cs cannot be taught from a textbook, but rather acquired while working with each other in the classroom.
4C Skills
- Competencies foundational literacy and numeracy are learnt swiftly through ALfA.
- Children develop their creativity and critical thinking through making questions for each other.
- Children develop their communication and collaboration skills by working in pairs.
4C Traits
- By working with many different children over the course of a few weeks, students develop their citizenship and character.
- Climate consciousness is developed through role plays and short stories.
- Connectedness with each other is key to broader outcomes such as social, emotional and mental wellbeing.
Intrigued, want to learn more?
Watch this 10-minute explanation of ALfA and DEVI Sansthan's work.
Explore the ALfA materials in 30 languages.
Start teaching today with the Literacy Now app.
Research & Evidence
Disruptive Literacy: A Roadmap for Urgent Global ActionJuly 2022
Discover how to mobilise a people’s movement for literacy, learning from famous historical examples and building a roadmap for the 21st century.
Accelerating Learning for All: A Groundbreaking Pedagogy to Transform EducationJan 2024
Learn in depth about the Accelerating Learning for All pedagogy, with case studies of classroom implementation in India and around the world.
Rebuilding Resilient Education Systems after the Covid-19 PandemicMarch 2023
Professor Reimers (ed) and his graduate students (authors) review ALfA implementations in Uttar Pradesh (Chapter 8) and the Maldives (Chapter 10).
The Inconvenient Truth of Illiteracy Inequality: Intersectionality of Sociodemographic DisadvantageAug 2021
Findings from a 2015 literacy survey of 1.5 million people in Lucknow, with analysis of the compounding effects of sociodemographic factors like caste, age, gender and geography.
45 Days to Literacy by Flipping the Script
Latest data and impact stories from ALfA implementation in thousands of schools across
ALfA Numeracy: Swift, Scalable, StructuredFeb 2025
Explore the ALfA numeracy pedagogy, and understand the data & evidence for its impact through implementations in India and around the world.
HP NIPUN Rapid Results InitiativeFeb 2025
Read the early impact as ALfA is rolled out in stages across the state of Himachal Pradesh.
Literate Uttar Pradesh: Sab Padhen, Sapne BunenJan 2025
Check out the data from ALfA implementations in over 7,000 schools in 4 districts of India’s most populous state.
Rapid Results Initiative: Explore, Expand, EmbedJan 2025
Understand how to conduct an ALfA research implementation, leading to scale-up and embedding in education systems.
Empowering Women & Girls: Education, the Heartbeat of Community TransformationMay 2024
Explore DEVI’s adult literacy programs, with a particular focus on women and mothers.
Achieving Universal FLN: Swift, Effective, Proven at ScaleMay 2024
Discover ALfA’s impact around the world through a series of country-by-country case studies.
Watch a video taking you inside an ALfA classroom
Financial Support
Your rupee goes a long way towards supporting the education of disadvantaged children.
Volunteer
Want to give someone the gift of a lifetime? Help a disadvantaged person learn to read using the free Literacy Now App.
Partner
Reach out to explore collaborations for literacy. Working together, we can make a big difference.
training
Dignity Education regularly conducts Massive Open Online Training workshops, empowering teachers from across India and around the world with the ALfA methodology. Training sessions included videos taking participants inside the ALfA classroom, exploration of the ALfA material, and practice of many hands-on activities.
HIGHLY EFFECTIVE
HIGHLY INTERACTIVE
Participants use the chat and quizzes to interact with each other in real time sharing
HIGHLY SCALABLE
Hundreds of thousands can participate at the same time
HIGHLY CONVENIENT
Participants can learn from the comfort of home
NO CARBON
No need to travel around the world
FREE
No need for an expensive venue & equipment
SUBSCRIBE TO OUR YOUTUBE CHANNEL
- ✓ Access to all past recordings of training sessions
- ✓ Notice of upcoming training
- ✓ Opportunities to come to in-person events
Moot
PARTICIPATION AND EFFECTIVENESS
66
Countries with representatives from all 6 continents have participated to date
28
People from almost all states of India have participated
70
Views on the YouTube training videos so far
86
Of participants said they would 'definitely' use ALfA in their class
97
of participants passed the quiz & were shared free access to ALfA materials
99
of teachers said they had new take-away points from the training
ENGAGING ACTIVITIES
Wordsmith: Participants make as many words as they can using just a certain set of letters.
top chat replay
- vNimmi Shukla 16 words
- uUsha Rajesh Sharma 28
- sSaimon's reality, literacy: 23
- jJagjeet Kaur fascinating activity
Number Whiz: Participants make as many words as they can using just a certain set of letters.
top chat replay
- vSunil Kumar 6
- uBhawna Chundawat 6
- sPriya Vijay 6
- jSunil Kumar 123, 132, 231, 213, 312, 321
- sAsiya Begum 6
teacher testimonial
Mamta (PS Narpat Khera)
Children are learning with the known to unknown method, which is highly effective.
Miguel Angel Peña Flores
Greetings from Peru! ALfA will make a big difference here.
Gurugrt
As well as making education interesting and joyful, children reading in pairs will be helpful in developing their character.
Fatima Nafees
ALFA techniques of teaching is very interesting for students as well as teachers.
Hemlata Sahu
This is an excellent method, in which children collaborate to derive the first sound from the name of a picture.
Padmaja Tripathi SRG
All the children are learning with each other in pairs, which is remarkable in and of itself. They are learning maths through games. Amazing!
Chhama Singh
All children feel valued and important with paired learning. They also learn how to sit with each other as equals.
Sarita Devi
Children will enjoy learning to read with the ALfA books, because these books are pictorial.
Radhe Patel
Children are learning with each other in pairs, which is remarkable. Amazing!
Poonam Singh
Children are learning through games and they are also having fun.
Ravinder Kaur Gill
Amazinggggg session....we learnt alot....
ALfA uses assessments which provides instant, detailed feedback that can inform and shape the learning process. Rather than traditional tests which stresses out students and overburdens teachers with marking, ALfA assessments are joyful and help guide learning.
Childern compete against themselves, striving for progress, rather than competing against each other.
TRADITIONAL TESTS
Only factual recall, motivates 'mugging up'
Used to classify students into 'strong' & 'weak'
No constructive feedback - just a grade
Time-taking for teachers to mark
ALfA ASSESSMENTS
Tests higher-order thinking and problem-solving
Students ‘compete with themselves’ rather than each other
Students receive detailed feedback to inform further learning
Teacher burden is reduced through scanning software
