By Capt. Indraani Singh | CEO & Managing Trustee
Literacy India has been working with the poor rural and urban communities for more than two decades, where children with weak educational foundation are forced to follow their parents, irrespective of school session schedule. We have strongly advocated technology aided education and now its relevance is more than ever. It is only with technology and specially designed software program of 500 hours that vulnerable and underprivileged children can be brought up to speed, given the situation.
Gyantantra Digital Dost has successfully been implemented by us to ensure out-of-school children as well as school dropouts, students weak in academics to get basic education for their better future and accelerate the learning process. However, with education centers and schools being shut, these children need devices to continue to push against the despair of the situation. The marginal communities cannot afford mobile phones or laptops, and this is the community which needs the crutches of educational foundation the most – not just to survive such unprecedented situation but also to ensure that the progress made by the country does not slip away. The COVID 19 pandemic has impacted each one of us, the severity of which is yet to unfurl. As the world braces itself for what lies ahead, the Indian Government still struggling to ensure the security of the future generation. One of the key aspects, education – especially elementary education - is at a critical junction as experts worry that the progress made so far, has since suffered. The recent migrant crisis and the continuity of schools being shut is a major blow to the 427 million children in the country. But especially impacted are children above 6 years of age, a critical age to create a essential educational foundation.
Literacy India has a robust solution to meet this monumental challenge. Not only do we have an intelligent educational software which focuses on individual learning capacity but also serves as a resilient and patient ‘teacher’. We started the project using Google Classroom with the children of these communities. Students made trained in Google classroom, assigned worksheets, assignments, recreational projects where these children can be engaged under the guidance of teacher.
Activities undertaken during the quarter:
Community Survey and Mobilization
Most of the students enrolled are first-generation school goers. Their parents had smartphones but could not think of their usage for academic purpose. During lockdown, Literacy India teachers went for a community survey and approached the students and their parents and elaborated on the concept of a virtual classroom. Initially, the parents hesitated, but the teachers played their role efficiently and skilfully to bring students to the virtual classroom. Further, students were enrolled and provided training on the effective use of technology for education. They were trained in WhatsApp, Google Classroom & Google Meet to access the learning content.
Pre-test Evaluation
The Pre-Assessment was conducted across the communities and each individual student participated in it. During the pre-assessment, we checked the existing knowledge of students and to what extent has the individual student progressed on the assigned syllabus. We categorically segregated the students “requiring improvement” and focused more on them to improve their learning gaps.
Centre-wise Assessment of Topics (comparison of Baseline Data to End Line )
To ensure students learn more meaningfully in the virtual classrooms, the academic team of Literacy India brought the concept of continuous evaluation to monitor the students learning level and take timely decisions in order to maximise a learners’ academic progress. This process of evaluation was used for improving student’s achievement through detection and correction. It would detect child’s improvement areas and allow the teacher to discover specific learner’s academic gaps and provide them individual attention to enhance their academic learning levels.
As a process , after completing a set of topics with students, the teacher conducted a test comprising of ten questions and evaluated children’s learning level, knowledge gained, and understanding developed for the topics taught. This helped the teacher to make a fair judgment on students' concentration level, attentiveness, understanding and retention about topics taught in the class.
Story of Change
Name- Keti ( Name changed) Location : Delhi
Pre-Covid-19, half of the world’s children were already unable to read a simple text by the age of 10. School closures have deepened pre-existing learning disparities, within and among countries, due to inequities in access to technology
Keti ( name Changed) Grade IV , 10 years old child among all who was also facing challenge to accomplish her academic proficiency as schools were closed for long time. She is 1st time school goers and shy by nature also. While she has been enrolled under the program found underperformer in every subject. She scored 6 marks out of 100 in language as well arithmetic. Several common topics in language both Hindi and English like nouns, pronouns, verbs, synonyms, one-word substitutions, and punctuation, simple passages reading and attempting questions was not able to attempt. Similarly in Arithmetic Addition, subtraction & multiplication.
She engaged in learning through the program and attempted day to day as per assigned syllabus and lesion plan. she started responding by assignment and teachers observed her interest and improvement. The teacher then attempted to explain this by involving Keti in an activity in which she could freely participate and learn in an enjoyable way. She used coloured chart paper and cut it into a balloon shape. She arranged the balloons in a group by pasting them together. Three identical bunches were created. Post attempting the each topic of digital Module , She clearly grasped the concept & improvement measured.
She received 54 out of 100 on the mid-test after three months of enrolment and finally she scored 92 out of 100 on the Post-test. From the pre-test to the final exam, there was an 84 percent improvement. She has completed most of her curriculum assigned as per her age.
This is what her teacher said “She made excellent progress in both her academics and overall her personal development. She is very attentive we wish her all the luck in future to be the best”
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By Capt. Indraani Singh | CEO & Managing Trustee
By Capt. Indraani Singh | CEO & Managing Trustee
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