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Friday, December 18, 2020

Why Volunteer Virtually?

The outbreak of COVID-19 has caused significant disruptions to educational systems across the globe. Since the beginning of March, a nation-wide lockdown forced us to rethink our strategy and introduce educational packages that encourage and sustain continued learning. In responding to this crisis, Pratham has been striving to leverage its technology tools and digital content to keep children engaged, with support from parents and other caregivers.

• Varun Ramesan

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Friday, December 18, 2020

Gully, Gully, Chess, Chess!

The Covid-19 pandemic has posed several challenges, yet given us so many opportunities to learn new skills and meet new people. It has been a year full of lovely e-memories and virtual collaborations. One such partnership that arose in this period was that between our foundation, Samvedna and Pratham. Together, we were able to teach chess to 100+ underprivileged kids from across 5 states in India as a part of our pilot project in this year full of uncertainties.

• Bhushita Ahuja

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Friday, December 18, 2020

Khel Khel Mein Padhai - Learn As You Play

While solving their doubts, I had some interesting interactions with the students. When asked what they wanted to achieve by learning how to code, some students, in unison, giggled and responded that they wanted to hack major systems - probably imagining themselves as protagonists of a thriller story! As everybody shared their ideas, one girl quipped in saying she wanted to help her parents by training computers to do the job. At this, I grinned, because that is exactly what coding is all about - learning the language of computers to make our everyday work easier! Collectively, hearing their responses only fueled the belief that computational thinking is an essential skill for the current and future generations.

• Mugdha Trivedi & Rushil Kush

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Wednesday, November 18, 2020

“Karona, Thodi Masti, Thodi Padhai”: FUN AND LEARN with External Partnerships

When the country was being cocooned into its first lockdown, everyone soon realized the massive impact such a shutdown would have on the learning of children. Schools and colleges were shut, learning institutes were closed, and while initially, the children enjoyed the long sleepy hours and ‘padhai-less’ days, the dreariness of nothing to do soon caught up with them. It is no secret that, while a break from school and work feels refreshing at first, a prolonged disturbance in daily schedule can be mentally and physically taxing. With no attendance to maintain, no workplace to go to, and no evening gatherings to attend, maintaining continuity in daily activities became challenging, sometimes even leading to extreme idleness and sense of despair.

• Gillprit

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Wednesday, November 18, 2020

Learning How to Speak English Remotely

English speaking has been a skill in high demand for anyone and everyone seeking employment. It is aspirational for learners across age groups. It can help broaden world view, access new avenues, acquire the ability to communicate effectively and pursue higher education. In many ways, it’s a skill for school, work and life. Hence it wasn’t surprising, when in a short survey conducted for rural youth across villages of Rajasthan, UP and Maharashtra – English was voted as the most popular course to learn.

• Shrutika Jadhav Tawade and Yoshita Agrawal

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Tuesday, October 13, 2020

Remote Assessments for Children with Disabilities

Access to education has become a major hindrance during thepandemic in India, more so for children with disabilities who have had to face challenges due to inaccessible digital and learning infrastructure. At the beginning of the lockdown, the biggest fear thatPratham encountered was that the 1,000 children with disabilities who had already registered for NIOS, Pratham Open Basic Education would lose a year since their final examination scheduled for the end of March was left undone, due to the onset of COVID-19.

• Deepali Kapoor

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Tuesday, October 13, 2020

Aanganshala - My Aangan, My School

COVID 19 has been a tough time for everyone across the globe. All walks of life have been disturbed. All over India, schools have been closed since March 2020. While on one hand, health systems have been strained, the effects of COVID have impacted education, jobs and general well-being of people. This impact is going to sustain and continue in 2021.

• Viplow Shivhare

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Monday, October 12, 2020

An Opportunity during the Times of Adversity: EdTech Internship

Around mid-July, the Digital team at Pratham rolled out a call for interns to support the on-going projects and initiatives in EdTech, and to ensure that the interns get a hands-on experience in education’s new normal.The team eventually ended up having an extremely rewarding experience to get to know over a hundred applicants. This is when the idea of establishing a formal Remote EdTech Internship Programme emerged.

• Suprerana Chakraborty

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Monday, October 12, 2020

Learning First Aid Online

“When I was bitten by a snake, the villagers made me eat salt and chilli powder. They said if I couldn’t taste the salt and hot chilli, it meant that the venom had spread in my body” narrated a Pratham staff member from Madhya Pradesh. A young female volunteer who works with Pratham’s Early Childhood Education program in Patna said that one should apply ice cold milk on third-degree burns while others spoke of using toothpaste, lime (Choona) and certain spices for abrasion and minor cuts. These were some of the many shocking revelations about common practices of dealing with emergencies and injuries. We encountered them while conducting several virtual calls on first aid with our team members.

• Uma Ranade