External Support System for Holistic Education

The idea is to empower the community to create a self sustaining support system to educate and guide underprivileged children to equip themselves with necessary skills to face a challenging work environment.

My solution aims to empower communities to organize themselves into support groups for creating an environment and means for holistic education for children from underprivileged backgrounds. I intend to partner with NGOs that are working in this area, to reach the students and leverage the relationship they have already established with local schools, children and volunteers from the community. The NGOs working in this space, provide educational support to children mostly by way of english as a second language classes. My solution aims to utilise this existing infrastructure to create local support groups comprising of the NGO staff, student and community volunteers and provide them access to a library, online educational resources, webinars by experts providing career guidance and newspapers. Furthermore, awareness will be created about present day economic, political and policy situation through online news items in local languages, discussions and debates on the same will be encouraged. Eventually, community support groups will be empowered to create news analysis and debates on community radio with active participations of the children. 

Students from underprivileged background in India do not have access to quality education because even if they are enrolled in schools, those are understaffed and teachers are not well trained. Several NGOs work outside of the formal school system offering educational support, though this effort is commendable, it is not enough to bridge the gap between the skill and knowledge should possess and what they actually do. It also does not provide them any exposure to current affairs and general knowledge nor does it prepare them to discern their vocation in future. To enable all this an environment of learning and knowledge has to be created, to make such an effort sustainable, community participation has to be sought. This way emancipation happens through the participation of communities.    

It solves the problem of access to quality educational content and general awareness and opportunity to follow creative pursuits to bring about well rounded development.They will be taught to understand political and economic issues and deliberate over them and to have good understanding of policy and political economy that will enable them to be responsible and well informed citizens who can take part productively in nation building and society at large. This solution aims at achieving outcomes through community participation ensuring grassroots level emancipation and inclusiveness giving them confidence to face career challenges.

In my experience of teaching children from underprivileged background, I have noticed the need for reiteration and increase in learning speed when the content is made to seem part of their everyday use rather than just something they do inside a classroom for an hour. Similarly learning arts and getting an opportunity to express themselves creatively builds a lot of confidence. The culture of informed discussion and debate on matters of public interest is lacking and could have serious repercussions in a time when human resources lose their value unless they have the ability to adapt and empower themselves.

In the initial phase the idea is to reach children enrolled in government schools in Tamil Nadu by partnering with NGOs that are providing external educational support by way of conducting after school or weekend classes. The idea is to get the students themselves to be volunteers and bring in other volunteers from the community to maintain a library, take the lead in reading out and discussing new articles, help each other access educational content online. As one set of children benefit from the support group, they must in turn build on the existing system to deliver more benefits.

Monitor school assessment reports - Difference in educational performance

Track number of students attending support program and number of students volunteering to conduct activities - Increase in participation

Track students enrolment rates - Increase in enrolment in college education

This solution is unique because it is a way of self empowerment, and aims to create a self sustaining model. This solution aims to provide holistic development, not just after school coaching classes but along with those it aims to impart general awareness, creative arts and access to knowledge resources. This can be achieved by providing internet access, small libraries and newspapers. Eventually, they will be encouraged to set up community radio to disseminate knowledge within the community and encourage participation.

The solution is not introducing new technology but is looking to leverage existing technology and take it to people who need it most but lack access. It aims to make local communities self reliant and support groups self sustaining in the mid to long term. The objective of this solution is to empower children who lack opportunities to access resources and enhance their knowledge to make them capable of securing for themselves suitable livelihoods and live enriched lives in an inclusive society.

The solution requires investment in internet access and library inventory, these will require initial funding and support in the nascent stages. Subsequently, communities will be encouraged to become self reliant in running the support groups. The solution requires internet access through which educational resources, support and guidance for understanding school lessons, access to news and art will be provided with the guidance of volunteers from among the children and the community.

Funding will be required to provide internet access to the various support groups, for setting up libraries and for procurement of newspapers. Financial support will have to be extended to the support groups for a period of time till they become self sustaining. After a point the community is expected to raise its own funds and draw volunteers and become self reliant. We hope to partner with internet service providers, computer and other accessories manufacturers, book publishers to donate or subsidise costs. The solution team will work on a voluntary basis. 

The solution is dependent on access to internet for about 5 hours per day on weekdays and 8 hours on weekends. This requires investment in hardware, maintenance and internet services. As the solution envisages self reliance after a period of handholding, there is the risk of the process getting derailed.

The solution is dependent on building relationships with NGOs working in this space and leveraging established channels of delivery in education to the underprivileged. I have worked with few NGOs in the process but to make significant impact the program will have to be scaled up. Solve community would be a big asset in the process of creating this network and building synergies. This is a not for profit enterprise, the support team works on a voluntary basis. But funding will be required to provide resources to the communities.The Solve community would be a huge support in this process.