Improving access to digital education in rural areas

One of the major problems brought to the forefront during the pandemic, is the digital divide between urban centres and rural areas in children. Children residing in urban areas had access to smart phones and the internet by which they could continue to learn using our digital educational materials, whereas their rural counterparts had to face lack of these facilities putting them at a complete disadvantage as the lock down extended up to a full academic year. This unexpected situation put the teachers too in a difficult position as they had to cope with teaching online and also modify the content to enable it to be presented on virtual platforms. This also meant that the teachers themselves become more tech savvy. Though the accesses to these facilities were common and easily available in urban areas, it is virtually non-existent in rural areas. In some cases, children, who had access to smart phone, did not receive any educational or learning materials online, to help them understand the topics mentioned in their curriculum, from their school apart from photos of the lessons in their text books. In other words, very little or no learning was happening due to lack of graded online content that caters to building the skills and reinforcing them. We found that children in rural areas practically lost 6 months of their academic learning simply due to the lack of access to technology and resource materials. 

To address this divide, Chudar not only created r learning materials for middle school that were accessible easily online with limited internet in rural areas but also provided the much needed support to teachers on the method of content delivery as well as virtual class engagement of the students. We created avenues wherein children could get their doubts clarified as well as ask questions regarding the content shared. Thus making the sessions interactive rather than one-way instructions. We also conducted skill assessments to gauge the learning effectiveness and improve the competency levels in children. This also provided a road map for teachers to complete some of the most essential and crucial skills that are necessary for the children to progress to the next class. Here is a snapshot of the online content created to facilitate learning outcomes.

_____________Math___Science__Language

Skills----------------11----------- 8 -------------4

Videos -------------12----------- 8----------- 12

WS/P----------------15----------- 7----------- 11

Assessments ---12---------- 13-------------5

*WS/P - Worksheets & Puzzles

What we do: To start with, we identify government and aided schools in remote rural areas that are interested and in need of learning materials. Then to bridge the digital divide, we arrange for tabs to be given to children along with the necessary internet connections to access the online materials provided. We facilitate the sharing of the online learning content and interactions between teachers and students through class -wise WhatsApp groups. We orient the teachers on the skills to be focussed for each term, based on the curriculum prescribed by the Government. Then reinforcement materials by way of graded worksheets and workbooks are share with the students. We also monitor the progress through constant sharing of feedback from students and teachers as well as through periodic assessments after the completion of each topic. 

As a first step we see more and more schools approach us for support as in many of these areas, no virtual classes have been happening in the past 8 months in many of the schools. Several teachers and head masters have shared that sharing the Chudar content and interacting with children through WhatsApp much easier than doing virtual classes with longer duration and limited internet facilities. This also increased the number of students participating in the WhatsApp group, The content design and delivery also ensured that the children’s skills were reinforced through motivation, without them getting bored. These concentrated efforts made by the Chudar team have been able to bring the rural children back to learning.

Our reach to Govt. School has been increasing steadily from 17 schools in November to 36 schools by January with more requests on the way to support them. s. The table below provide the current list of schools, students and their access to digital content:

______________________Urban____Rural____Chudar Centres

Govt Schools --------------------17----------19------------------10

Total Students ---------------1690 ------ 1765---------------1500

Access to WhatsApp ------1202 --------646-----------------402

We would like to extend our support to many more such schools and to implement this program in rural areas we would like to raise around 5 Lakhs to support 500 children for one academic year.