Need of the Hour With eVidyaloka
90% of the Indian education system is driven by rural government schools, and there are 2 chronic challenges we have as a country: acute teacher shortage and quality of learning experience.
eVidyaloka is an NGO with a vision of creating a knowledgeable and empowered rural India, through quality education, addressing the above 2 challenges. These two challenges convert themselves into one huge opportunity –32 billion Student Learning Hours every year! Founded in 2011, eVidyaloka connects children in the most remote parts of rural India with passionate volunteers across the country and Indian diaspora from around the world, leveraging the power of technology, Community Connectors, and NGO Partners. Through the support of many benevolent and generous individuals and corporate organizations, we at eVidyaloka educated 21 lakh children from 11 states, in 6 languages with the support of 4000 plus volunteers in the Academic Year 20-21.
A snapshot of our work and programs can be viewed here: 10 Years of eVidyaloka – YouTube
Hima Nandini was one of eVidyaloka’s earliest students. She joined our digital classroom program in 2014 in grade 7 and completed grade 8 in 2016, from MPUP School in Laxmipuram, Andhra Pradesh. She was known to be a bright student, a great speaker, and had won multiple Telugu speech contests in school. Hima was also part of our scholarship training batch, and she topped in the State Level National Means Cum Merit Scholarship Scheme (NMMS) Examination. With support from her school and our on-ground partner NGO – IDEAS, Hima secured admission in a good private school in Tiruvuru in grade 9. Despite moving from a Telugu medium to an English medium school, she stood first in her class. She is currently pursuing her B.Tech first year in Velagapudi Ramakrishna Siddhartha Engineering College and is already performing well as per her first semester results. Today, students of her school keep her achievements as a benchmark and pursue their goals and dreams, believing that life is about to change for the better!
At eVidyaloka, we support and educate rural India across both sections – children who attend the government schools, through the Digital Classroom Program, and to those children who can’t attend schools- we support through community school – Digital Schooling Program.
Both the programs help support children between Grades 5 and 8. The primary focus is on scholastic teaching for Mathematics, Science, and English. Additionally, we also engage in several age-appropriate learning programs, co-scholastics which help the overall development of the child to help them reach their highest potential. All supported by a strong on-ground grassroot level NGO Partner network.
The Digital Classroom Program facilitates skilled volunteer teachers to teach children online. A technology-enabled classroom supports and ensures that children continue to get the best of teaching support and continue to engage well on the learning and related outcomes.
The COVID-19 outbreak and the consequent pandemic have shown us how challenging it is for children in rural and semi-urban areas to access quality education. Digital Schooling Program works on a multi-mode delivery model to address the digital divide that the most-deserving children face. It includes a Digital School set up in the community through the eVidyaloka Learning App, interventions through Workbook and Worksheets, and Learn Through Television programs. A child can learn in a medium that is reachable to them.
As a learning outcome, we noticed that in all subjects, more than 70% of the students scored above 80% in evaluations.
We at eVidyaloka, are very connected and passionate to be present in all the villages of the country. The objectives are therefore
Set up an online campus in every village
Impart education and skills to 15 crore beneficiaries
Connect students and teachers, with multimedia content resulting in Educating – Anywhere, Anytime
To support our education programs, you can donate through the following link:
https://fundraisers.giveindia.org/projects/sponsor-a-year-of-education-for-rural-children
To learn more about our programs, you can visit us on Facebook, LinkedIn, Instagram, and Twitter.
Brinda Poornapragna, the CEO of eVidyaloka Trust, is an industry leader with 25 years of extensive experience across Technology, Financial Services and Social Sector. She has worked in leadership positions in reputed organizations with rich experience in Banking, Financial Services, Technology, Consulting, Business Development with comprehensive exposure to operations and business development both in strategy formulation & successful implementation across geographies.
