Help India's Underprivileged Children continue Learning in these difficult times with Digital Aids

COVID-19 has severely impacted the learning process for many children for whom education already meant a lot more than their basic right. With education systems adopting the online approach, many children from suffering backgrounds find it difficult to continue their learning process. CRY wishes to impact 32,580 children from grade 8 to 12 across 181 village clusters, who are at the risk of succumbing to child labour. Your contribution of ₹1,000 will go a long way in ensuring essential teaching aid materials like digital tablets for these students.

Closure of 1.5 million schools due to the Coronavirus pandemic and the resultant lockdowns has impacted 247 million children enrolled in elementary and secondary schools in India (UNICEF).

The pandemic has kept children out of school for the last 16 months thus creating all kinds of hurdles in their aspirations to complete their school education. The loss of livelihoods and the growing financial pressure has made children extremely vulnerable to child labour. The primary data collected by our on-ground team from a sample of households in CRY’s operational areas in 18 states shows that last year alone there has been an 82% increase in child labour.

Additionally, due to the absence of digital devices, school children are losing touch with their school subjects and the habit of structured learning. This will have severe implications on children when schools reopen and they have to go back to school eventually. Inability to cope with their studies will lead to dropout and increased child labour.

This is the time to intervene and ensure that children get back to lessons in a structured setting and help them make up for the crucial lost time in their education. The absence of an intervention such as this will result in learning deficits for a significant number of children which will become difficult to overcome.

• The programme will be run using Digital Tablets which will be given to qualified teachers to conduct classes for children in the village
• Each teacher’s study session will be attended by a group of children from the same village and also some children from nearby villages
• If schools reopen in the coming months, these study sessions will be continued to supplement the school teaching and help ease children back into the routine of school
• The content of the sessions will be linked to the standard-specific curriculum and lessons of the relevant State syllabus 

The programme will run for 8 months across 181 village clusters impacting a total of 32,580 children from Std VI to Std XII who are at the risk of becoming child labourers. By ensuring children have continued access to school despite the closure of schools, children will be protected from child labour and permanent discontinuation of school and thus from the inescapable cycle of poverty.