The Hindu Business Line : Education that clicks

Rural children in Karnataka discover a whole new world at the click of mouse, thanks to the efforts of the Azim Premji Foundation and the State Government.

Eleven-year-old Suhail Ahmed of the Government Higher Primary Urdu School, Yarab Nagar, Bangalore, never realised that holding a mouse in his right hand would open up a whole new world for him. Till his `computer sir', Chand Pasha, hand-held him and helped him discover the history of Karnataka, educated him about the `right click' and the `left click' functions of the mouse, made math as simple as possible, and even encouraged him to try out a few rangoli designs on the computer.

At the Computer-Assisted Learning Centre (CALC) of the Yarab Nagar school, 600 other children like Suhail are stepping onto a new learning curve in their lives. And in Karnataka, 84,000 rural children in 225 CALCs are already exploring the exciting possibilities that the wonder machine can offer them. The CALC is one of the three programmes conceived and initiated by the Azim Premji Foundation (APF), a not-for-profit organisation based in Bangalore.

Says Dileep Ranjekar, CEO, APF, "We are working in partnership with the Governments of Karnataka and Andhra Pradesh and in terms of the guidance, co-operation and execution, the support that we have received from the governments, it has been a dream experience." The Foundation, a personal initiative by Azim Premji, Chairman, Wipro Ltd, is working toward making a difference to the country through a concept called the `Universalisation of Elementary Education.'

Currently, there are three programmes running under the initiative: Accelerated Learning Programme (ALP), Learning Guarantee Programme (LGP) and CALCs. The Foundation has implemented the first two programmes in rural schools in North-East Karnataka. That's because a survey of out-of-school children showed that more than 6 lakh children in the age group of 6-14 years were out of school in the State. And out of these more than three lakh children came from the districts of Gulbarga, Raichur, Bellary, Koppal, Bidar, Bijapur and Bagalkot.

Says S. Giridhar, Head - Advocacy and Research, APF, "We want to develop a proof of concept, convert it into programmes and implement them in a few areas before scaling up or spreading it to other parts of the country."

In fact, Ranjekar was very hesitant to talk about the activities of the APF, "We are not too keen on talking about ourselves till we prove and show some results," he said.

"The ALP and the CALC are directed toward improving the learning abilities of the children, while LGP helps in the training and development of teachers, community members and education functionaries so that `they deliver learning improvement in an ongoing manner," says Ranjekar.

There are three aspects to the APF's mission of Universalisation of Elementary Education: Enrolment, Attendance and Learning. And the 70,000 children in the State that are under the ALP are learning to attend classes more regularly and develop competencies seen among their peers.

The Government has a two-month bridge course (Chinnara Angala) for primary school dropouts.

"Sometimes, even with this course, they are not able to cope with mainstream education. What our volunteers do is identify such children and bring them away from regular classes for a couple of hours everyday to teach them separately," says Giridhar. These volunteers were selected after a written test and an interview by the APF. They were also trained by a pool of Master Resource Trainers, who, in turn, have been trained by the Academics and the Pedagogy team of the Foundation.

Most of the children's education in the ALP is through activity-based programmes. Evaluation of the children's progress is done through a chart put up in the school where every child's competency level is mapped right from the beginning. "The success of the programme also depends on the interest shown by parents and the community in general. We have to create an atmosphere where attending school and learning is not a matter of choice, but a way of life," says Giridhar.

The Learning Guarantee Programme, on the other hand, throws a challenge to the school to meet certain identified criteria of enrolment, attendance and learning achievement of children within three years. Schools that achieve these criteria will be rewarded (Rs 20,000) by the Foundation. About 6,500 schools expressed interest in the programme, out of which currently 895 schools are participating in the exercise. The Foundation has selected and trained 584 evaluators who are required to be graduates.

The CALC initiative came about when the Foundation found that parents in rural areas had two interesting aspirations for their children: The children must learn English and be computer-savvy. It was then that the APF started working on the programme of providing content to rural government schools. These centres are run by APF-identified volunteers. Called Young India Fellows, the volunteers help students during school hours and after that help members of the community unravel the marvels of technology.

Chand Pasha of the Yarabnagar school, is one such Fellow. Talking of the enthusiasm of the students he says, "Initially, I was worried that they would mishandle the mouse or the keyboard, but the children are careful, as you can see." He sometimes leaves them to discover things themselves. Occasionally they get stuck while entering a password or changing a folder.

Pasha handles around 600 children in the school starting from Class III up to Class VIII. "Each child gets about 80 minutes a week, which is good enough," he says. The CALC programme has now covered 225 schools in 27districts of the State.

The Foundation employs around 75 people apart from paying salaries to the volunteers. Ranjekar says, "Remember we are only giving the content. The Government provides the actual infrastructure and hardware. And whatever work we are doing is miniscule compared to what the Government is doing."

Talking about their work, he says, "There are about 8.5 lakh government elementary schools in the country and about 50 million children deprived of the wonderful experience of studying in a formal school. And to reach all of them will require massive team work and partnership with the Government."

Picture by G.R.N. Somashekar

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