When we talk about the growth of the country, we take various factors into consideration and education is one of them. While urban schools are getting the best of infrastructure, facilities and teachers, schools in rural areas are still struggling for facilities as basic as toilets. Lack of teaching staff and motivation among students are two of the major reasons behind poor education quality in rural schools. 85% of the government schools are in villages, and do not get the benefit of quality education.
Started by Satish Viswanathan and Venkat Sriraman, eVidyaloka is a not-for-profit organization that aims to improve the quality of education in remote regions of India through digital classrooms.
The organization has reached out to over 650 students so far through digital classrooms in 33 cities in 11 countries with the help of around 100 volunteers, and delivered over 2500 classes, which translates to more than 50,000 child learning hours.
“We want to look for practical solutions to the problem. The idea is to enhance the learning outcome of the students by bringing learning modules, students and technology together,” says Ramkumar Vankatraman, member of board/trustee of eVidyaloka.
The team believes that India should take advantage of those digitally aware people who are willing to teach. There are two approaches that have been used to solve the education problem in India – either create a platform for underprivileged students where they are taught by various volunteers, or create more teachers.
“Both these approaches are not the solutions to the problem in the longer run, as it requires a lot of skills and resources to create such platforms and not all teachers are willing to relocate to remote locations. Hence, digital classrooms are something which can leave a greater impact,” says Venkatraman.
3 teachers (from Hyderabad, Pune and Rewari) walk in to the class room in Tikratoli Village, Jharkhand and say hello and gear up to teach those lovely children.
How does it work?
The digital classroom has a 32” LCD screen with a high-power camera and a conference mic. The classes are taken by teaching
volunteers based across the globe through Skype. The eVidyaloka team arranges for the class timings and centres depending upon the batch size and availability of the teaching volunteers. The teachers include housewives, working professionals, and even senior volunteers who have retired from various careers including the defense forces.
Local NGOs and partners located in these villages take care of the classroom setup. The target students are of the age group 11-14 and are taught Mathematics, Science and English with the same syllabus as prescribed by the local State Board.
“These subjects are more useful and practical in regular life for these students and are thus our priority at present,” says Ventakraman.
Rural areas always have power issues like frequent power cuts which might hinder the regular teaching process. Hence, the classes are scheduled after considering the schedules of the power cuts. Also, these centres have power back ups in case of emergencies. In places without power supply, eVidyaloka works with alternate power supplies like Solar.
To avoid reinvention of ideas, eVidyaloka is partnering with non-commercial organizations that are working in the same sector.
The challenge
“The biggest problem was to get volunteers who are willing to teach,” Venkatraman says. Another challenge was managing the content and administration.
Also, identifying students who are open to learning through this type of classroom model took some time. eVidyaloka partnered with various local NGOs as they would know best about their particular conditions.
Language also came up as an issue but was countered by appointing volunteers who know the local language at respective locations.
A class in action. An employee of Headrun took a break from work, taught english, from the Cafetaria and got back to work!
The future
eVidyaloka plans to reach over 1300 children across 28 centers, with over 200 digitally connected teachers.
Lessons learnt
“The biggest lessons we have learnt is that quality education is the most important thing today. If we provide it to even one child, he or she becomes empowered and lights the whole village,” Venkatraman says.
The team also believes that you have to be patient as coordinating with so many people at the same time is a challenge and only spontaneous thinking can solve the issue.
How can you help eVidyaloka?
You can support eVidyaloka in various ways. You could become a teaching volunteer with them and teach the students in remote villages digitally, without actually travelling to these villages.
You could also help the team to develop the standard study programme and help them create an IT support system. In case you want to visit these centres, you can be a volunteer to administer back-end class operations.
Apart from that, you can donate, spend some time, share the joy or just simply spread the word. A sum of just Rs.10,000 can fund the annual education of 3 children. Your contribution can help them reach out to more children across more villages.
Want to get in touch with the organization? Contact- talktosomeone@evidyaloka.org, visit their website or call +919731213531
- See more at: http://www.thebetterindia.com/11850/evidyaloka-rural-students-get-good-education-digital-classrooms/#sthash.npQtZqNI.dpuf
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