Remote learning in digital era

Remote learning in digital era

We may have just hit the cornerstone of the next revolution in rural education, thanks to the simple solutions that the digital class may have to offer. Shantini has just graduated from Class 10 with 70% across all subjects. Nothing so special about it, until one gets to know that she hails from a small hamlet in a village in the middle of a forest in the Analamai Tiger Reserve of the Western Ghats, and her school has just two teachers for Classes 1 to 8. Her education was facilitated by volunteer teachers sitting thousands of miles away, who taught her through a digital classroom setup in her school premises, connecting from different cities, over a live video connect. It was that foundation, and her inspiration to study more, which made her pursue high school, even though she had to traverse from the neighbouring town.

Now, that may well be the cornerstone for the next revolution of rural education in India. The simple solutions that a digital classroom can offer may bring in the access to teachers for the rural child, a privilege that has increasingly been skewed towards the urban over the few decades. More than 70% of our population are in villages, and in spite of the physical infrastructure, mid-day meals, free uniforms, books and also a strong Government push, more than half of the children drop out of school by the age of 10. While child employment may still continue to be a challenge, the reality is that there are not enough teachers in most villages that can serve as a counter-pull factor.

This is partly the side effect of urbanisation, where employment is gravitating more into towns and cities, and the teacher’s job is no different. The dilution in the charm of teaching as a profession is also a glaring reality, and perhaps, a root cause for many ills of the society as well. Either way, it is an irony that for a country which has produced about 50 million graduates, we could not find the 1.1 million teachers required to provide quality education to our rural children.

Fortunately, there seems to be another perspective and a potential opportunity here as well: if only we could tap even 2% of those 50 million graduates, well, we may quite be having the teaching potential that the country desperately needs. And it really doesn’t matter where they may be located. With the advent of digital classrooms and live video classes, the distance defined by geography is now already history.

So, what is a digital classroom? In simple words, from a child’s standpoint, the teacher appears on the big TV screen when the bell rings in a digital class instead of her walking in physically into the classroom! Fascinating concept, and no longer theoretical!

Setting up of a digital classroom is not that complex either – all it takes is in having a computer with a microphone, wide camera, speaker, a TV to project and a broadband connectivity. However, the greater challenge is in ensuring the volunteer teachers and their time are logically channelised to the respective school requirements. Remember, these children are not taught in English, but in the respective local vernacular, and that’s what makes the whole model so exciting and interesting.

The beauty of having passionate volunteer teachers is in the instant connect that the child finds in these quasi-mentors. For children whose role models have been limited to the school headmaster and the uniformed policeman visiting the village, the kind of mentoring that this digital connect can create is simply immense. So much so, that the children of one such digital classroom in AP today know about the Indian Airforce and the pride of being in the defense – thanks to an inspiring volunteer teacher who is an ex-serviceman.

There are also challenges in the sustaining the digital education model as it is not just the technology, but also the building blocks of people and a strong process framework that needs to enable its execution. For instance, establishing the digital classroom in Government schools calls for a high degree of ownership at the village level, typically driven through local NGOs who are concerned for the cause of educating the children of their respective villages. It takes a fair bit of effort to build a large base of network of teachers, channelize their effort with the appropriate schedule of classes, build the continuity of teacher supply and most importantly have strong content platform to drive the quality of education.

The spirit of teaching is not just in the moment of learning, but in the building blocks that help lead to that moment. It is said that once when President JF Kennedy visited NASA, and happened to ask a Janitor on what she did, the reply was truly larger than life: Ï am helping put a man on the moon”. That’s the spirit of building institutions that deliver the ultimate joy of education. It’s not just the teachers, but also scores of NGO partners, Government officials, technology platform developers and educationalist-operations people who really lay the foundations for that magical connect of the teacher and student to happen, every day, every-where. After all, we are talking about teaching anywhere, anytime!

The impact of digital education can best be measured in its quality of learning, and the attendance and engagement of the children. The visual aids, video content and live conversation with the teacher makes the learning “magical”. With the mike, speaker and the web-camera the interactions between the child and teacher can be livelier and exciting than even watching a live match on the TV!  The fact that 80% of children have reported attendance in such digital classroom initiatives as against the national dropout average of 50% is a strong impact story in itself.

 As the country marches towards its 71st Independence Day, there may be merit in reflecting the multiplier effect that quality education can bring in. “Give a man a fish and you feed him for a day; teach a man to fish and you feed him for a lifetime”, it is said. Well then, you teach a child and provide her with quality education, you may well be feeding the whole village for many more lifetimes to come!

 Bylined by: Ramkumar Venkataraman, Trustee & Board Member, eVidyaloka Trust