Report

Project Sampoorna

Jharkhand Evaluation Report

Neha Raykar , Dimple Kukreja , Shreya More , Adya Makkar , Aasim Ansari 10 October 2025

©Akshaya Patra Foundation/Pixabay

Introduction

Project Sampoorna is a multi-partner initiative led by a consortium of seven organisations in collaboration with the Government of Jharkhand. Piloted in 60 schools starting in 2020, under the School Health and Wellness Programme (SHWP), the project aims to embed a Whole Child Development (WCD) lens in public education with a focus on socio-emotional learning (SEL) for students in grades 6–12. By 2022, with 9 schools phased out and 10 transitioned into Schools of Excellence (SoEs)¹, Sampoorna was implemented in 80 SoEs under the Government of Jharkhand’s Leader School Programme (LSP), covering all 24 districts. The evaluation findings in this report cover the implementation of the programme in these 80 SoEs.

Sampoorna focuses on four primary outcomes for adolescents in grades 6-12. To achieve the behaviours and changes outlined below, Sampoorna has focused on developing nine socio-emotional skills in children – emotional resilience, critical thinking, taking initiative, responsible decision-making, self-awareness, self-respect, growth mindset, establishing and maintaining positive relationships, and empathy towards others.

Students can overcome negative emotional experiences: Equipping children to deal with problems they encounter, such as gender biases, discrimination or trauma, will help them to stay on course in the face of hardship. This is done via focusing on emotional resilience as a skill.
Students can solve complex problems effectively: Improving students’ problem-solving skills – identifying and understanding a problem, and devising possible solutions to solve it – will aid their academic and personal lives. The 3 skills in focus here are critical thinking, taking initiative, and responsible decision-making.
Students strive for self-growth: Students should have the attitudes and skills, to develop and pursue goals, academically and personally, especially with low support. This is done via focusing on 3 skills – self-awareness, self-respect, and growth mindset.
Students can have positive social interactions: Bullying, ostracisation and discrimination against students are problems in some schools. Building social and emotional skills like establishing and maintaining positive relationships and empathy towards others will help students develop positive social relationships and interactions with peers and adults.

To improve the nine selected socio-emotional skills, Sampoorna aims to create change at three primary levels to influence adolescents’ social-emotional learning:

Changes in schools², such as influencing headmasters/headmistresses (HMs) and teachers to prioritise SEL and alter their behaviour toward students, creating a positive school climate, and improving teachers’ pedagogical practices in and outside classrooms.
Changes in government, at the state and district levels, such as changing officials’ mindset towards SEL, including SEL in education officials’ regular duties, and including SEL in the government’s education agenda.
Changes in parents, such that they support children’s emotional wellbeing at home through their participation in School Management Committees (SMCs) and Parent Teacher Association (PTA) meetings.

Evaluation objectives and methodology

1. These SOEs are model schools that provide quality education and fosters a vibrant atmosphere, promoting a variety of extracurricular activities, enabling underprivileged children to compete with private school peers.
2. The intervention at the school level is called Harsh Johar, and all stakeholders identify the intervention by the name of Harsh Johar.
3. Mahoney, J. (2012). The logic of process tracing tests in the social sciences. Sociological Methods & Research, 41(4), 570-597. Collier, D., 2011. Understanding process tracing. PS: political science & politics, 44(4), pp.823-830.

IDinsight conducted a mixed-methods evaluation from 2022 to 2025 to assess:

Changes in the following outcomes over time:
- Student SEL
- Teacher attitude and mindsets
- HM attitude and mindsets
- School climate
- Government official attitude, mindset and knowledge
Attribution: To what extent can these changes be attributed to Sampoorna’s interventions.

1. These SOEs are model schools that provide quality education and fosters a vibrant atmosphere, promoting a variety of extracurricular activities, enabling underprivileged children to compete with private school peers.
2. The intervention at the school level is called Harsh Johar, and all stakeholders identify the intervention by the name of Harsh Johar.
3. Mahoney, J. (2012). The logic of process tracing tests in the social sciences. Sociological Methods & Research, 41(4), 570-597. Collier, D., 2011. Understanding process tracing. PS: political science & politics, 44(4), pp.823-830.

We employed process tracing³ as our primary analytical approach, which examines evidence collected over time to make causal claims (of attribution) within a specific case. This approach was necessary because traditional experimental designs were not feasible, since the 80 SoEs were both specially selected by the government (using internal selection criteria) and simultaneously received the LSP interventions, making a valid control group impossible to establish for a counterfactual-based evaluation design.

Our evaluation combined multiple sources of primary and secondary data for a comprehensive assessment of impact. Primary data sources included:

Large-N student and teacher surveys in baseline and endline
Small-N interviews with HMs and government officials in baseline and endline
Classroom observations in baseline, endline, and process evaluation
Observations of teacher training sessions as a part of the process evaluation
Observations of meetings between government officials and program staff as a part of the process evaluation

Secondary data sources included process monitoring data provided by our implementing partners and data on other ‘similar’ programs in Jharkhand or any major changes in the life skills space in Jharkhand, based on desk reviews and information from implementing partners on the ground.

1. These SOEs are model schools that provide quality education and fosters a vibrant atmosphere, promoting a variety of extracurricular activities, enabling underprivileged children to compete with private school peers.
2. The intervention at the school level is called Harsh Johar, and all stakeholders identify the intervention by the name of Harsh Johar.
3. Mahoney, J. (2012). The logic of process tracing tests in the social sciences. Sociological Methods & Research, 41(4), 570-597. Collier, D., 2011. Understanding process tracing. PS: political science & politics, 44(4), pp.823-830.