Google on Monday announced a $5-million support to upgrade and support 50 elementary schools run by the Bharti Foundation — the philanthropic arm of Bharti Enterprises. The elementary schools are in Punjab, Haryana, Rajasthan and Uttar Pradesh and would be named as Satya Elementary schools.

Bharti Foundation provides education to underprivileged children in rural areas. Its flagship initiative, the Satya Bharti School Program, reaches out to over 30,000 children, with particular focus on the girl child, from socially and economically challenged backgrounds. The Foundation offers them access to free education through 236 village primary schools and one senior secondary school. Going forward, an additional 15 primary and 4 senior secondary schools are scheduled to be opened in the next academic year.

Google will provide financial support to set up middle schools (classes VI -VIII) as well as help meet operational expenses to upgrade primary schools to elementary level. Once completed, this initiative will help upgrade 50 primary schools to elementary levels and reach over 15,000 children. In addition, at full capacity this will provide employment and skill training to over 500 teachers.

Mr Rakesh Bharti Mittal, Vice-Chairman and Managing Director – Bharti Enterprises, said, “The financial support received from Google will further allow the Foundation to scale up the existing Satya Bharti School Program from primary to elementary level and take education in rural India to the next level.”

Mr Nikesh Arora, Chief Business Officer, Google, added, “We have a strong presence in India and have benefited from the enormous talent in engineering and science in this country. We are delighted to support Bharti Foundation's initiative to spread education and empower India's next generation.”

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