Finland and KITEs Kerala collaborate through UNICEF grassroots programs. / UNICEF

A group of eighth graders in a rural Kerala school are collaborating on a plan to build revolutionary mobile apps using open-source software and cutting-edge animation and robotics. All thanks to a program called Little KITEs, implemented by Kerala’s KITE (Kerala Infrastructure and Technology for Education), touted to be the largest ICT student network in the country.

Over 1,80,000 high school students (Grades 8, 9, and 10) are currently members of Little KITEs clubs formed in over 2,174 government and aided high schools in the state of Kerala, practically covering 50 percent of the state’s schools.  UNICEF, having embarked on this ambitious mission of socially relevant IT up-skilling, is today benefitting more than 12, 00, 000 students.

The programme is aligned with UNICEF’s Life Skills Framework and emphasizes critical thinking, creativity, problem-solving, collaboration, and communication skills. Further, in alignment with UNICEF’s Global framework on Transferable skills, Little KITEs has a focus on students’ life skills, social skills, 21st-century skills, and socio-emotional skills. It has built the capacity of about 4500 teachers to guide the Little KITEs students with hands-on exposure learning in the evolving digital landscape. 

Little KITEs also promote the responsible use of technology and encourages active participation in EdTech infrastructure maintenance, thus creating an enriching learning experience with a view to the future.

Easy sign-up ensuring long-term success

Kerala has embraced the program and is becoming a flagbearer in rural up-skilling, serving as a model for countries like Finland. The Little KITEs initiative received the `Best Innovation Project’ award for 2022 from the state’s Chief Minister. 

On September 6, 2022, a collaboration between Kerala’s KITE and Finland’s Education department was officially announced to adapt the Little KITEs model in Finland’s schools. One of the main reasons for the rapid proliferation of this program lies in the government's impetus to popularize meaningful innovation among young school children.

Schools interested in setting up a Little KITEs unit apply via KITE’s online portal, declaring how many computers they have, the school’s internet connectivity, and if there are any hi-tech classrooms. In the school selection process for Little KITEs, KITE engages and empowers parents and the community to also play an active role. When a PTA debates and agrees on the decision to set up Little KITEs, they appreciate the additional time and resources that students spend after school hours on their experiments and innovations. 

Little KITEs students are selected after an online aptitude test assessing their IT, mathematics, and logical reasoning knowledge. Between 20 and 40 students who top the test are selected as Little KITEs members, with a unit leader and a deputy leader. Each school’s Little KITEs club comprises three batches of students in Grades 8, 9, and 10, totalling a maximum of about 120 students. If a school has more eligible students, additional batches are created to accommodate all the qualifying students. To facilitate the learning, the head teacher nominates two teachers to coordinate the programme in each school.

Solving real-world problems in the tech arena

UNICEF has carefully curated the curriculum to ensure that it is at par with global IT industry requirement, incidentally solving real-world technology challenges in India and rest of the world.

The Little KITEs curriculum, which comprises animation, robotics, programming, development of mobile apps, AI, malayalam computing, hardware and electronics, media training, cyber safety, e-commerce, e-government, video documentation, and web TV, has been curated by the academic team at KITE and resource persons hired from across the country.

Little KITEs club activities are typically conducted after school hours. While students in Grades 8 and 9 are supervised by a teacher, students in Grade 10 are assigned individual and group projects.  All the necessary equipment for the Little KITEs activities, such as Arduino kits, laptops, and cameras, are provided by KITE. Computers used for the students’ IT classes are also used for Little KITEs such that the student computer ratio is maintained at 2:1. Students themselves are entrusted with the upkeep of all gadgets and equipment.

Embracing open-source technologies

To ensure the easy implementation of the Little KITEs programme, KITE has facilitated the adoption of Free and Open Source Software (FOSS) through several ICT-based initiatives in which students and teachers actively participate. The state government’s decision to use FOSS in General Education Department since 2008 itself gave Kerala an early start and has helped save about INR 3000 Crore annually in infrastructural costs, according to the State of FOSS Report, 2021.

While Kerala may be a one-off state that has jumped aboard the UNICEF bandwagon and is training students while they are young and bubbling with ideas, the fact that it has inspired Finland is a testimony to the fact that grassroots IT innovation is truly a case study for rest of the world to follow.