Under Academic pathway, CAP aims at providing quality education and learning opportunities to out of school, in school and post high school children and young people at risk.

Non-residential Bridge Schools provide the working and out of school children, between 8 to 12 years, access to quality through a well developed and tested rapid learning module. Floating classes are held in bridge school for new entrants throughout the academic year until as long as it takes for them to reach minimum level of learning for the age appropriate class through a flexible learning schedule. On successful completion of the bridge course in terms of acquiring age appropriate grade level minimum competencies, they are mainstreamed in the nearby schools. Over 12,000 children in the age group of 8 to 12 years have been successfully mainstreamed supported to transit from work to completion of formal education certification.

School improvement program works towards improving the quality of education and developing government schools as learning resource centres with stake holder’s participation. Each school with stake holder’s participation prepares a school-community vision statement, charter, activity calendar and blueprint for the next three years. The schools form school development committees led by the head teacher for review and monitoring the implementation of the school vision plan .The members of this committee comprise of select teachers, children, parents and community members .Other interventions at the school level include capacity building of teachers in implementing activity based teaching and developing adequate and relevant supplementary teaching-learning material for students so as to facilitate children in acquiring grade level competencies. CAP is currently working with 32 government schools covering around 8500 children.

The Teen Channel program through its community learning centers aims at reaching out to the adolescents who opt out of school as well as potential drop-outs between the ages 14- 18 years. It provides an integrated learning program of academic support for high school completion/certification along with life skills, pre - vocational education, basic computers skills and opportunities for them to earn while they learn through apprenticeship & part time jobs. The model addresses issues affecting their quality of life and future in an enabling environment that engages their learning needs – academic,, vocational, occupational. In the last five years, nearly 6000 adolescents have accessed the program with 76% of them completing elementary and high school State Board examinations.

For the regular in school children in government high schools, CAP offers pre- vocational education module for students of classes six to nine. The pre-vocational education module is integrated with select concepts of academic subjects such as Social Studies, General Science, Mathematics and English and is available in digital form.

The CAP Foundation with funding support from USAID-India had initiated in FY 2004 a Pilot Project integrating CAP’s education initiatives with 3 Madrasas in & around Hyderabad City in Andhra Pradesh, India to provide access to formal full time quality education.to the difficult to reach children of the Muslim minority community

The CAP team, in conjunction with the Committee members of the Madrasas focused on the following in the primary classes:

The training provided by CAP included child centered teaching techniques and extensive use of visual aids that were prepared by the teachers themselves. Teachers developed teaching materials for their own classes and ensured that these were not only decorations for the class but also used on a regular basis by students for learning. In addition, life skills development became an integral part of the CAP Madrasa curriculum.

The Project interventions, over time, with support from the Office of the State Project Director, SSA-AP further expanded to additional eight Madrasas in the slums of Hyderabad city & its suburbs to provide quality education and skill development opportunities to Muslim minority children & youth

In the Pilot phase, CAP organised a series of consultative meetings, workshops & exchange visits in association with the Madrasas, SSA/AP and other interested NGOs to bring SSA/AP & the madrasa committee members together on a common platform to discuss the issues related to integrating quality education in madrasas. This resulted in increasing realization by both madrasas and the SSA/AP on the potential and need for integrating formal education in madrasas within the State education program framework.

This also created a demand for further dialogue and strengthening relationship between the Madrasas and formal education service providers for more sustainable integration and mainstreaming of the interventions. The SSA-AP & the Madrasas requested CAP to continue to play the role of interlocutor for further strengthening the relationship between them to help expand this initiative across more districts of the State and to serve as the lead training organization for training of Madrasa teachers.

Based on the positive response from the Madrasas, CAP entered into a partnership with SSA-AP to expand the program from October 2006 to September 2008..

The program now addresses the continuum of issues that will contribute to the universalization of elementary education goal of SSA-AP by introducing and improving formal education in madrasas through promoting the SSA-madrasa partnership.

CAP has been playing the role of an interlocutor between the SSA-AP and the Madrasas to bring them together so that they could jointly resolve the existing & emerging issues and a sustainable long term relationship could be built between them in working towards the UEE goal. This is achieved by facilitating a series of meetings between SSA-AP & Madrasas at the state and district levels for building trust and trouble shooting.

A series of government orders have been issued by the Office of the State Project Director, SSA-AP with respect to the extension of some of its schemes to the Madrasas, e.g., teacher volunteer support, Teaching Learning Material Grant for teachers, mid day meal, provision of text books, etc. SSA-AP has responded by extending its program to cover a large number of Madrasas. Once the Madrasa show their intent and readiness to seek support, SSA-AP signs and MOU with the Madrasa. Over 850 Madrasas have already signed the MoU with SSA-AP.

The teacher/ vidya volunteers hired by Madrasas for imparting formal education are provided monthly honorarium and annual teaching learning material grant from SSA-AP. A total of 2595 teacher volunteers are already receiving honorarium from SSA-AP. The Madrasa children are provided free text books and mid day meals.

The Madrasa teachers are trained jointly by CAP and SSA-AP, by their resource persons or brought in from other organisations or institutes working in this field, to equip them to introduce formal education and activity based teaching learning in Madrasas. In the process, a resource group of members from SSA-AP, Madrasas & CAP has emerged to take the training of Madrasa teachers and material development forward.

The Madrasa children and teachers are also provided support material in the form of work books/activity books developed specifically for Madrasas. This includes-

        • Telugu - Abhayas Pusthakam Workbook for classes I to II .

        • Science - Hamara Mahaul Workbook for classes for I & II .

        • Maths - Ektasabi kitab Cha Baraye Hisaab - Part I and II for classes I to V .

        • English - Activity workbook For Classes I to V .

        • Urdu - Meri pyari Urdu for class I and Assass Urdu Reader and workbook for class II .

Other institutions and organisations like Maulana Azad National Urdu University, Jamia Mila Islamia, NALANDA, Vikramshila and SARD have been brought into the program

Periodic District level meetings conducted with madrasas by SSA & CAP representatives to understand the status & issues concerning madrasas

Besides, CAP has set up 10 Employability Training Centres across 10 districts in partnership with Madrasas to demonstrate & develop employability skills among the youth from the Muslim minority community. 3816 youth have been trained in ITES, Customer Relations & Sales, and Hardware. 74% trainees have accepted placements in companies like Spencer’s. Tata Indicom, Karvy, Vodafone, Hindustan Unilever, Narayan Hospital, Taj Jewellers, Appollo Hospitals, Ameens Electronics, Honda Motors, Eureka Forbes, Adarsh Motors and Infotech with salaries ranging from Rs. 3000 /- to 4500/-per month.

Initiated in the academic year 2008 – 09, CAP’s degree college at Pathancheru in Medak district, Andhra Pradesh, is affiliated to the Osmania University. It currently offers three courses – B.Com, B.Sc and BA in Social Work.