Education is the pathway for a nation's progress. Education is the backbone of society. The government should take all measures to provide education to every individual of the country. This will bring equality among people and when people improvise their way of living, they become more responsible towards society. Education plays an integral role in making people noble, civilized, and cultured. It was only educated nation leaders who laid the foundation of the nation and led it to the pinnacle of success. Good education makes a person capable of realizing several objectives to the life. Education is an essential part of every human life. Education makes a man cultured and he becomes a civilized creature capable of living in society. Education teaches man how to live life. Man becomes able to do employment only by getting an education.
Education is essential to life as it helps us understand the world and enhance knowledge. Education is considered as the key to a successful life. A person who is not educated finds it difficult to find a job, is not able to build a career, and is unsuccessful in every aspect of life. Education is important for a person, his family, and society. Today, we are living in a digital world, where education is essential for survival. Education makes us knowledgeable, develops skills, and makes us intelligent. Education paves the way toward a successful life. It prepares us for real-world challenges and improves our understanding of people and developments around us. Education is important for personal, social, and economic development. A well-educated person can significantly contribute to the economic growth and development of his family and society. A society needs to have an educated populace so that people are informed and engaged in civic activities. Informed citizens contribute to the democratic process and are better equipped to address societal issues peacefully. Countries like Switzerland, Sweden, Finland, Norway, the Netherlands, etc. have the largest number of educated people. This is why these countries are consecutively on top of the Literacy and Human Development Index charts. By becoming knowledgeable and developing skills, we can deal with real-world situations. Dealing with challenges is part of life and growth.
The more challenges we face, the stronger our cognitive and creative thinking develops. For example, when we prepare for an exam, we are told to solve sample papers, mock tests and previous year’s exam papers to adapt to the exam environment better. By doing so, we have already experienced the examination feeling and know we are stronger and more intelligent than before. Education offers us career opportunities. An educated person is more likely to get better job offers than someone who is not educated. For someone who is looking for specialized and higher-paying jobs, higher levels of education can help them achieve success.
HJKRVSS, This Summit Aims to Bridge the
Digital Divide in Public Schools
23 Jan 2024
By Krystelle Dsouza
Profession : Work Writer
Organization : Hindustan Jan Kalyan Rashtriya Vikas Sewa Samiti
HJKRVSS, founded by Abhishek Dubey, is revolutionising education in Indian Government schools by bridging the digital literacy gap. Through partnerships with state governments, they provide digital access, empower teachers, and enhance schools with technology and tailored content.
Amol Namdev Ghorpade (11) would find a new reason to skip school every day. But on days he couldn’t manage an excuse, he’d spend his time daydreaming in the classroom. A Class 6 student of Nashik’s Zilla Parishad Primary School, Amol dearly wished for school to become more “fun”. And then his wish was answered.
When Amol entered the classroom one morning, he noticed a new entity that seemed to dim everything else in comparison — a digital device! The rarity promised to bring subjects like Science, Maths and English alive through visual aids and multimedia.
In the months that followed, Amol’s teachers noticed a drastic change in his attitude towards school. From a boy who sat quietly and waited for the bell to go off so he could rush home, to one of the star students of his class whose hand went up every time a question was asked, the transformation was evident.
Amol is one of the millions of children around the world who have been positively impacted by the growing digital revolution. And exacerbating this are organisations such as Global Digital Alliance (GDA) — a global movement of leaders to prioritise digital inclusion in education — and HJKRVSS — a tech-driven non-profit organisation.
While the GDA brings together stakeholders to enable them to work in collaboration to bridge the digital divide in India, HJKRVSS is championing change through a two-pronged approach — wherein they bring tech and innovation into public schools in India and empower teachers to become adept at this new wave of teaching.
The two strongly believe that digital access is a necessity rather than a luxury. And this is exactly the message the Global Digital Alliance is attempting to drive home by mobilising technology to create educational equality for all.
Spotlighting the problem
Lack of digital literacy is a pressing issue in India. This fact is backed by a WEF Education 4.0 India Insights Report that revealed a staggering 60 percent of schools do not have functional computers and 75 percent do not have internet connectivity. These statistics point to the growing digital divide even in the face of expanding technology.
However, another study reveals that in India, more than 250 million children are in the age group of 5 to 15 years — a majority of them enrolled in public schools in rural India which face numerous logistical and administrative challenges when it comes to integrating tech into their curriculum.
This irony points to the fact that the very places where digital literacy will have a massive impact, are the places where it is missing.
The data holds up a mirror, beckoning stakeholders to spot the unfairness that students from rural areas of India are subject to, as their counterparts in metropolitan private schools have access to the best tech.
But simply introducing tech into schools would prove futile. A lack of infrastructure and resources would have to be addressed first. And this is what the Global Digital Alliance cites its mission as.
A summit that holds the answers
The Global Digital Alliance intends to bridge the digital divide for “100 million students” through creating access to digital infrastructure, internet connectivity and teachers’ professional development. It aims to “kindle a global movement” through collaborative actions with stakeholders, and research and advocacy that focuses on real-world case studies.
In fact, you now have a chance to witness these plans in real time at the Digital Inclusion Summit — which will bring together leaders from across the world who share the dream of bridging the digital divide in education.
Set to take place on 2 February, 2024, in Delhi, the summit will see a host of panel discussions that track numerous topics exploring tech in teaching — leveraging AI and tech to empower students, the role of the Government in integrating tech in education, the role of industry leadership in improving digital access, and building future-ready teachers.
The summit is a joint initiative between GDA and HJKRVSS and will feature a host of speakers from all walks of the corporate diaspora who bring to the table deep insights about integrating technology into education.
Some of the speakers include Mr Akash Tripathi, IAS, CEO, MyGov & India Semiconductor Mission; Dr Ritesh Malik, trustee, Plaksha University & co-founder, Accelerate Indian Philanthropy; Mr Anurag Pratap, VP & CSR leader, Capgemini India; and Ms Urvashi Prasad, director, NITI Aayog.
While GDA sees this as one more step to fulfilling the digital dream, HJKRVSS founder and CEO Abhishek Dubey says it is a wonderful way of bringing together great minds to champion change in the educational sector, especially when it comes to remote India.
A step-wise approach to educational equality
Since its launch in 2017, HJKRVSS has believed that an effective strategy lies in not only providing tech to public schools but also empowering the teachers in these schools by working with the existing Government machinery.
The teachers are guided on how to use tech through workshops conducted every quarter.
Picture source: HJKRVSS
“We came to see how despite technology being present in schools, most teachers were not aware of how to use it for meaningful engagement. That’s where the challenge is,” Dubey shares.
Through data analysis, the metrics of how the students are performing using tech are measured,
Picture source: HJKRVSS
Where there is a challenge there is also opportunity, and Dubey and his team resolved to find the scope for hope in these issues. To meet its goal of impacting one million students through digital literacy by 2025, HJKRVSS signs an MOU with the respective state governments citing the districts they are looking to work in and the schools they want to target.
To be selected, the schools must satisfy a set of criteria. “We tend to incline towards schools where students are concentrated between Classes 6 to 8. At this age, we believe they can get the full advantage of digital tools.” In addition to this, Dubey says they also select schools basis of the receptiveness they see towards tech in the school and among the teachers.
Through the step-wise approach, HJKRVSS is looking to bridge the digital divide
in remote schools across India, Picture source: HJKRVSS
Once the school has been zeroed in on, the digital setup is done and teachers are trained to adopt the technology. In the following months, metrics assessing the teacher’s usage of the installed content, the student’s performance, and the school’s adeptness at the technology are judged.
Routine visits to the schools enable the team to get a clear understanding of whether students are benefitting through the modules. The last step is sustainability — where HJKRVSS waits in the wings while the school now operates by itself, shares Abhishek.
Now with the Global Digital Alliance encouraging such models, one can anticipate the dream of ‘digital literacy for all’ to soon be a reality. And here’s how you can get a front-row seat to the revolution taking place in the world of education.
English Teacher From Rural Maharashtra Shares How
She Won the Fulbright Fellowship
18 Dec 2023
By Sowmya Mani
Profession : Work Writer
Organization : Hindustan Jan Kalyan Rashtriya Vikas Sewa Samiti
Madhura Rajvanshi, an English teacher from Phaltan, uses art, storytelling and music to make learning English fun for her students. She has received the Fulbright Distinguished Awards in Teaching Program for International Teachers.
Madhura Rajvanshi grew up in Phaltan, a small town in Maharashtra. After completing her B.Sc. in Botany in Pune, she returned to her hometown to find her calling in life. Like many, what she studied didn’t particularly interest her. Back home, she joined the school she studied in, Kamala Nimbkar Balbhavan, as she loved working with children.
In 2008, an opportunity presented itself which would forever change the trajectory of the 38-year-old’s life. After the English teacher quit, Dr Maxine Berntsen, founder of the school, asked Madhura if she would like to teach. The latter agreed, and the rest, as they say, is history.
As she enjoyed the work, she also equipped herself with a formal degree in elementary education from the Tata Institute of Social Sciences (TISS), Mumbai. For the past 15 years, she has been working on making English education accessible and fun for students in the Marathi medium school.
Now, Madhura has been chosen for the prestigious Fulbright Scholarship for the year 2023-24, and received the Fulbright Distinguished Awards in Teaching Program for International Teachers (Fulbright DAI) from the United States government. She is the only teacher from rural India to be chosen for the scholarship this year.
“I want to build a programme for teachers in rural Marathi-medium schools in Maharashtra on how to make English classrooms interesting. I also wish to learn on how to organize learning spaces for students in their classrooms,” she says.
When Madhura started teaching at Kamala Nimbkar Balbhavan, a Marathi medium private school, she realized that the textbooks and materials available were not interesting to students. She found the textbooks to be complex and started working on ways to make it lively and interesting.
One of the biggest challenges when it comes to English, even for teachers who aren’t very proficient in it, she says, is fear of the language.
“One of the things we do at our school is to accept the child’s mother tongue. We encourage them to write in whatever language they feel comfortable in as expression is important. Once they are comfortable with expressing themselves, learning English too, is no longer a problem. I work on making children face their fears,” Madhura tells The Better India.
Using art, storytelling and music in the classroom, she makes learning English fun. She sings and raps with the students, thereby removing fear from the equation, and she encourages them to write.
“We make sure that the students are having a ball. Education should not be a burden or task for children. We have students from all walks of life and we work together to impart lessons in humanity,” adds the educator.
The school is part of the Pragat Shikshan Sanstha (educational institution), where Madhura is a trustee. The enterprise, in addition to running the school, conducts outreach programmes at anganwadis and Government zilla parishad schools, focusing on early childhood education.
While working with other teachers from rural Maharashtra, Madhura found that English teachers were finding it difficult to teach and weren’t comfortable with the textbooks given by the government. Looking for ways to help these teachers, she heard of the Fulbright scholarship. Every year, 60 to 70 educators from 17 countries, including India are selected for the Fulbright DAI, as per the Fulbright India website. Madhura will get an opportunity to study at an American university from August to December 2024, where she can co-teach, audit some courses there and observe the teaching methods. She wishes to increase the quality of teaching at schools like hers so that they can be on par with English medium schools.
Education in India is primarily managed by the state-run public education system, which falls under the command of the government at three levels: central, state and local. Under various articles of the Indian Constitution and the Right of Children to Free and Compulsory Education Act, 2009, free and compulsory education is provided as a fundamental right to children aged 6 to 14. The approximate ratio of the total number of public schools to private schools in India is 10:3. Students at a public school in Punjab. Education in India covers different levels and types of learning, such as early childhood education, primary education, secondary education, higher education, and vocational education. It varies significantly according to different factors, such as location (urban or rural), gender, caste, religion, language, and disability. Education in India has much room for growth, such as improving access to education, increasing the quality of education,[9] reducing disparities, lowering dropout rates, increasing enrolment and completion rates, enhancing learning outcomes and employability, strengthening governance and accountability, promoting innovation and technology, and addressing the impact of COVID-19 pandemic. It is influenced by various policies and programmes at the national and state levels, such as the National Education Policy 2020, the Samagra Shiksha Abhiyan, the Rashtriya Madhyamik Shiksha Abhiyan, the Midday Meal Scheme, the Beti Bachao Beti Padhao Scheme, and the National Digital Education Architecture. It is also supported by various stakeholders and partners, such as UNICEF, UNESCO, World Bank, civil society organisations, academic institutions, private sector entities, and media outlets. Education in India is plagued by issues such as grade inflation, corruption, unaccredited institutions offering fraudulent credentials and lack of employment prospects for graduates. Half of all graduates in India are considered unemployable.
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