Enablers

In India there are over 250 million children enrolled in schools. Despite several education reform initiatives being undertaken by many states, foundational learning levels in India are low which can be primarily observed in 72.8% children in grades 2/3 in rural schools who cannot read small texts with comprehension and 71.9% cannot do subtraction as per ASER 2018. Foundational skills are gateway skills, children who fall behind early rarely catch up as their learning trajectory flattens after Grade 2. If a technology backed reward based educational inclusion system is created by bringing together all stakeholders supportive of FLN across the globe then  learners along with other stakeholders like unemployed youth, rural schools etc. can evolve to not only bridge their gaps but work towards becoming deserving to desire for better resources to keep driving the change. As per ASER 2021 penetration of smart phones in children's households has doubled from 29.6 per cent in 2018 to 63.7 per cent in 2021 in India but it was not accessible for online studying to 26.1 per cent of them which leaves more than 50% rural children deprived of individual Smartphone aided education.  Also, current reward based systems in India doesn’t cover student with no internet facility for continuous tracking of learning and assessment. Hence it is of paramount significance that all stakeholders within ecosystem have access to evidence based learning improvement in students so that the stakeholders can be encouraged towards fulfillment of their desired goals through rewards while they prove to deserve it by showcasing their result oriented involvement in FLN.  

Enablers aim to create a reward based circular ecosystem in education domain using OKRs (objective and key results) for FLN. To ensure its smooth functioning a centralized online platform will be created with following primary features –

• Stakeholder groups based on their intention, availability of resources and previous proven work record.
• Identify, assessing, redefining and aligning their OKRs
• Transparent data driven monitoring for
  • Stakeholders without internet facility
  • Stakeholders with internet facility
• Reward allocation

Milestone 1 focuses on creating awareness and on boarding of stakeholders with shared interest in Foundational literacy and numeracy while helping them identify, assess, redefine and align their OKRs (objective and key results).

Milestone 2 focuses only on connecting learners and other stakeholders without internet access through newspapers and interactive voice call centers.  This will ensure that they catch-up what they missed in regular education system while monitoring their progress by continuous learning-assessment method.

Milestone 3 aims to develop a centralized online platform for all stakeholders for them to access their progress on OKRs and motivating them with rewards for accomplishing their set key results.

While Milestone 1 and Milestone 2 takes place in sequential manner, Milestone 3 can be developed in parallel.

Please find the pictorial presentation of concept ‘circular ecosystem in education’ supported with example. 

The solution aims to run pilot by addressing the children in the age group of 5-16 years and enrolled in govt. schools of Raipur, Chhattisgarh who are unable to read standard 2 level texts and perform division as per ASER 2021: Chhattisgarh report. The report highlights that -  In Raipur district of Chhattisgarh, India 98.6% Govt. school students in standard 1-2, 63.8% in standard 3-5 and 31.7% in standard 6-8 are unable to read standard 2 level text.  Also, 99.3% of Govt. school students in standard 1-2, 95.4% in standard 3-5 and 71.1% in standard 6-8 are unable to perform division.

These children can show improvement by the solution ‘enablers’ spread across three milestones, as many of them lack access to quality education due to unavailability of academic resources like smartphones, computers, additional learning materials, teachers etc. It is important to note that education sector at grassroot level lacks quality data on continuous learning and assessment. The solution encourages giving rewards to motivate and making data available that can hold the stakeholders for collective accountability, monitor progress, collect feedbacks to take corrective actions and keep celebrating the change.  

We are a team of two members who have been blessed with scholarships to continue quality learning while in school and college. One of us have been born and brought up in Raipur, Chhattisgarh and have been actively involved in education domain. The second team member carries the technological edge with experience in programming and building data driven models. Our education method helped 100% students learn alphabets and numbers, 60% to learn words from English alphabets and 50% to learn counting till 100. Also, 20% students learnt to give basic introduction in English.

Our journey started during Covid19 when we realized that 20 children in nearby area are unable to continue with their studies as govt. schools were closed and they did not have enough facilities to conduct online classes. Hence we decided to engage in conversation with these children and their families to understand their problems and academic progress. It came to our realization that not only the children are deprived of academic resources but also quality education in-spite of attending regular govt. schools. After, further research and conducting paper based test it became evident that Foundational literacy and numeracy needs improvement.

We initially started providing them visual study materials and conducted daily classes over mobile phone using automated and real-time voice commands in Hindi language to help them memorize and comprehend. This helped students to improve and learn within a span of 2 months. After providing successful service to 20 students we now aim to extend benefit to more number of students by developing automated memory development learning and assessment system through newspaper and interactive voice response system to collect relevant data for initiating Milestone 1 and 3 in parallel.

At present, our team is able to cater to 20 students from near around areas from where we operate. We aim to run a successful pilot in Raipur, Chhattisgarh for which we look forward to receiving support from Solve in the areas of –

• Actively learning from peers, mentors and experts. This will empower our team to keep incorporating strategic changes while scaling up. 
• Funding, academic and non-academic resources to increase outreach to students enrolled in Govt. schools and other stakeholders.
• Building impact measurement system to share the results on main stream communication platforms for increasing participation in the solution proposed.  

Our solution primarily connects students with no internet access and no access to smart phones along with on-boarding stakeholders with shared interest in FLN. It provides continuous learning-assessment through distance education for students to cultivate their foundational literacy and numeracy skills thereby ensuring data driven education ecosystem in absence of technology at grassroots level. The solution proposes to use OKRs and motivate through rewards to connect all stakeholders supportive of FLN in circular education ecosystem. The solution will not only function to align stakeholders with result oriented approach towards shared goals but also serve as parallel education system to reduce burden of traditional education system. 

We aim to run a successful pilot by achieving all 3 milestones within 1 year which involves following -

Milestone 1: Create awareness and on-boarding of stakeholders with shared interest in FLN using OKRs (objective and key results) -

• This involves connecting 500 students enrolled in 50 Govt. schools with access to at-least one cell phone , 100 undergraduate students from 40  Bachelor of Arts colleges and 10 business administration colleges in Raipur, NGOs working in education and literacy area in Raipur, private organizations and Chhattisgarh state government resources within the boundaries of Raipur, Chhattisgarh, India. Also, connect with 10 newspaper publishers.
• It can be achieved within 6 months.

Milestone 2: Connect learners and other stakeholders without internet access through newspapers and voice call centers –

• Setup required resources for interactive voice call centers and distributing newspapers daily.
• Provide training to 100 undergraduate students for voice process.
• It will be accomplished in remaining 5 months.

Milestone 3:  Develop a centralized online platform for all stakeholders and provide access –

• It will be achieved in 8 months in parallel to Milestone 1.
• Data updates will continue till 11th month for successful completion of data collection.
• Final report generation in 12th month to provide closure to pilot.

After successful accomplishment of pilot within 1 year, we will replicate the solution across 70 wards within 8 zones under Raipur Municipal Corporation till 2nd year while incorporating required changes to make the system more efficient.  Furthermore, we will replicate model practiced across Raipur throughout 32 districts of Chhattisgarh within the span of next 3 years. 

By 2030, ensure that all girls and boys enrolled in grades 2/3 of Govt. schools in Chhattisgarh achieve foundational literacy and numeracy which define students to be able to read while comprehending text and perform division. 

For foundational literacy -

We are measuring percentage of students enrolled in government schools in respective standards against reading levels which are –

• Not able to even read letter
• Able to read letter
• Able to read word
• Able to read Std. I level text
• Able to read Std. II level text

For foundational numeracy -

We are measuring percentage of students enrolled in government schools in respective standards against attained arithmetic levels which are –

• Not able to recognize numbers 0-9
• Able to recognize numbers 0-9 
• Able to recognize numbers 10-100
• Perform subtraction
• Perform division

As per the secondary research, the probability of student performance in higher standards degrades due to low FLN skills. The validation of the statement can be found in Andhra Pradesh schools in India where students with better FLN skills gave more correct answers when he/she was studying in grade 5 compared to the students with low FLN skills.  The probability of a correct answer on language and mathematics test, by grade, relative to curriculum standards increases with better FLN skills. This is also mentioned in the theory of change for which image can be found as under. 

At present our solution makes use of SMS technology and interactive voice calls to give pre-recorded and real-time voice commands for memorizing and comprehending the information contained in physical printed paper sheets. 

The solution will further need blend of apps and software along with traditional method of educating through newspaper. Required apps and software will be important to develop continuous learning-assessment platform for collecting quality data which is first recorded on newspaper and then data is fed in the database for stakeholders to monitor progress using OKRs to ensure connecting the students with no internet or no access to smartphones. 

Our approach is to ensure multiple stakeholder participation which helps us to incorporate and acknowledge individual and shared vision, diversity in accessing a problem but collaborating to find a solution. Also, we encourage inclusivity into the work by collecting feedbacks from all participating members for the ecosystem to evolve while incorporating changes as per the inputs received time and again. 

We have goals for becoming more diverse, equitable and inclusive for which we aim to on-board various stakeholders like freelancers, homemakers etc.  to further widen our network.

Enabler aims to create a circular education ecosystem for key stakeholders like govt. school students, newspaper publishers, NGOs and other stakeholders to work towards a shared goal of foundation literacy and numeracy backed by data along with result oriented approach using OKRs. The solution aims to provide academic resources, exposure, profile cultivation services and rewards in B2B model while charging on per individual basis. It helps to connect all students who have low FLN skills due many reasons like  low quality education, no internet and no smartphones.

Please find the Social Business Model for better understanding. 

A continuous learning-assessment education ecosystem can become sustainable by generating revenue through multiple streams. Some of them are - 

1. Low-income model for providing academic resources to govt. school students due to cross subsidization and using traditional modes of imparting knowledge. 

2.  Employment business model for conducting events to enhance skillsets of individuals for improving their chances of being employed and providing them market linkage.

 3. Fee-for-service on individual basis for consulting on cultivating profiles of students enrolled in collages, unemployed youth etc. 

4. Raising grants and investment by sharing insights generated due to data collection at multiple levels.  

We have been appreciated and provided with academic resources by various local business owners and donors. We were also selected out of more than 10000 applicants for a celebrated national level event called 'Jagriti Yatra' which takes the longest train journey of 8000km in India to empower youth and social entrepreneurship. This annual event was conducted digitally in 2021 due to Covid19. Also, some of the students have paid to enroll in our courses which give us the encouragement to scale up the plan and achieve financial stability.