Over 50,000 government school students in Maharashtra to get quality education at their finger-tips

In a major CSR initiative, the municipal corporations of Mumbai and neighbouring districts of Thane and Raigad have joined hands with Sony Pictures Networks India (SPNI) to provide free online access to curriculum-linked educational videos to the government school students.

The programme, which is ideated and executed by ConnectEd Technologies, an ed-tech social enterprise that specialises in

executing large-scale developmental projects aims to impart quality education to government school students, especially during the ongoing Covid-19 pandemic.

As part of this program, ConnectEd Technologies will work with corporations and district administrations to provide students with free online access to the edtech company’s web and mobile app platform. The platform shall serve quality educational content in Marathi, which is in sync with the Maharashtra State Board curriculum; covering every subject, chapter and concept. At the outset, the initiative aims to benefit students from Grade 5 to 10 across schools located in Mumbai, Thane and the Raigad region of Maharashtra.

Subsequently, the initiative will scale to students from other regions of Maharashtra.

“The Covid-19 pandemic and resultant school closures emphasised the need for a parallel, digital framework through which quality education could be served to government school students,” said BMC’s education officer Raju Tadvi.

“While mounting our social response to stakeholders affected by the pandemic, we found it important to address the educational needs of students relying on government schools, whose learning was impacted due to school closures during the lockdown. We hope this initiative will become a stable source for students to access quality education from the safety and comfort of their homes,” said Rajkumar Bidawatka, Company Secretary, Compliance Officer and Head CSR, SPNI.

Lehar Tawde, Co-founder, ConnectEd Technologies, said: "Covid-19 has changed the face of school education in India. Pandemic-related school closures kept 248.3 million school students away from classrooms since March 2020. While students associated with private schools could easily migrate to an online model of education, 136.6 million government school students suffered dearly.”

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