Evidyaloka turned up as a fully-formed, solid idea in the minds of two Microsoft employees and friends Venkataramanan Sriraman and Satish Vishwanathan. The pilot was launched as a fun-filled, holiday classroom in Thenur, Tamil Nadu, five years ago, at a local NGO called Payir Trust. At the end of two months, the duo realised that student attendance was good and there was interest in learning through a virtual classroom. Today, evidyaloka runs 137 classrooms, with over 839 volunteer teachers, at schools in rural India.

The learnings along the way have enabled them to refine further their idea of offering academic help to children in rural government schools through online teaching, says Sriraman, co-founder and executive director of evidyaloka.

From the start, evidyaloka’s framework and delivery model were designed to make it easy to replicate. The volunteers are primarily Indians from around the globe who are untrained teachers but eager to share their knowledge in the subjects they love. The overall atmosphere is that of a classroom, but without any of its rigid rules. The school will decide on the subject and the online lessons will supplement the teaching followed in the school — the target age group will be 8-14. Sriraman is all praise for the important groundwork already laid by the existing school system. “The structure laid by the government with a mid-day meal scheme, free educational implements and so on had already set the learning curve in motion.”

With an NGO partner to co-ordinate the virtual classroom in each rural location, evidyaloka gradually evolved to offer 20 hours a week of teaching integrated within the school hours and at the school premises. By this time, the children too had grown comfortable with the virtual teachers and the online lessons.

The next milestone was to validate the results. The children were given tests and assessments, and the outcomes yielded astonishing insights — the scholastic achievement was a 50 per cent score in the subjects, but the co-scholastic improvements were more amazing. Barriers were broken and the children were seamlessly connected with the world, past the urban and rural divide, and their confidence levels had improved, which reflected in better thinking and articulation of ideas. To foster this organic growth, evidyaloka introduced some more platforms — RUBARU, an annual signature event that promotes the spirit of rural and urban connect.

This, in turn, was the culmination of Joy of Connecting (JoC), a programme under which rural schoolchildren were given the opportunity to interact with corporate companies, institutes and communities.

The National Student Innovation Challenge (NSIC) gets hybrid teams of children from urban and rural schools to work together on a challenge based on the 17 United Nations Sustainable Development Goals.

The education ecosystem under evidyaloka sets specific goals for each of the stakeholders — namely, the corporate social responsibility partners, local community facilitators, philanthropists and the government. Except for the community NGO partner, which gets paid, all others partners at evidyaloka serve on an honorary basis and the service is offered free. The funding is met by the corporate and individual donors.

While evidyaloka functions within the parameters set by the State’s education system, which is mainly textbook-driven, the online tutor has also broken away from traditional methodology. A typical evidyaloka classroom over Skype can engage the children with any activity ranging from demonstrating a science concept through a practical, home-made hack, to a discussion on robotics or bio-molecular sciences, or just watching snowfall in Russia through the teacher’s living room window. The children enjoy the constraints-free, drudgery-free learning environment. “We have come to identify many virtuosic talents in this rural pool,” Sriraman observes.

With technology as the enabler, the mainstream education system, particularly at the high school level, appears set for big changes. Already, digitisation of classrooms and textbooks and free online courses are revolutionising access to information. Though the role of a teacher would still be relevant, self-learning will gain in importance too. “This [kind of] education will not be tied to competitive scoring but will enhance the critical thinking, creativity and innovation in the young minds,” Sriraman says.

evidyaloka’s volunteers are helping bridge the gap created by the huge shortage of teachers in rural government primary schools, he says. It is also a factor driving the company’s growth and sustainability. However, getting on board the voluntary teachers is a formidable challenge. evidyaloka uses social media, word of mouth and e-mailers, among other means, to reach out to potential volunteers. Applicants sign up online (evidyaloka.org/volunteer), and the entire selection process is online too.

“The kind of passion and involvement these voluntary teachers bring is what has made evidyaloka sustainable thus far, and will in times ahead,” says Sriraman. Though he is keen to reach more schools, diversification is not on the cards. At the back end, nevertheless, teaching methodologies, task sheets and a curriculum are being put together... Sriraman hopes, down the line, to get online teaching integrated into the mainstream school system. “That way, the value-add will be recognised and passed on to posterity,” he says.

Vijayalakshmi Sridhar is an independent writer in Bengaluru

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