A few Alpha Centers for Learning, schools where informal education had been imparted, have been given a make over by IRS in the academic year 2008-09. The children of these centres were over-aged or drop outs from schools. All of them have missed years of formal schooling due to poverty. For them schooling was not affordable. They took up rag picking, working as laboures for cinema industry etc., to support themselves.  Fetching these children to school was an elephantine task for the teachers as they were hesitant to start or resume studies.

In Alpha centres, for a certain period, lessons on basic life skills, cleanliness and basic academics were imparted.  Thus, for the past 2 years, these children have been into informal learning at the Alpha Centers. 17 such Alpha Centres for Learning have been upgraded by IRS into 7 ACL Upgrades, the English Medium Schools, in this academic year, where formal learning is being facilitated. The facilities at the existing IRSs are replicated at these ACL Upgrades also. To catch up with the years these children have lost, we are compiling a set of special textbooks containing worksheets, from class I to class V in all the subjects.