One of the schools at Rajgarh, India where School-in-a-box is being launched by WHEELS / Courtesy Photo

Understaffing in rural schools in India is a critical issue that hampers the delivery of quality education to millions of children. Nearly 80 percent  of primary through secondary schools in India, whether public or private, are grossly understaffed, with often only 3-4 teachers covering as many as eight grades. 

The chronic understaffing of qualified teachers leads to high student-teacher ratios, compromising personalized attention and educational outcomes. Low teacher motivation, driven by poor working conditions and limited career growth opportunities, exacerbates the situation. 

Additionally, rural schools often lack access to essential educational materials and technology, hindering the adoption of modern teaching methods. While the government has implemented various schemes to address these challenges, chronic understaffing and inadequately trained teachers prevent effective utilization. 

For instance, most schools have established ICT labs with 1-2 dozen computers, but they often remain unused and gather dust due to the lack of programs and trained personnel to operate them.

Education is one of the focus areas of WHEELS Global Foundation, which plans to cascade education through innovative solutions. WHEELS is a social impact arm, initiated by but not limited to, the PanIIT Community, with the objective of improving lives in rural India through technology-enabled solutions. WHEELS’ partner, Moinee Foundation, founded by young alumni leaders, has pioneered the School-In-A-Box solution that provides students access to all academic material in a digitized format. 

This solution integrates EdTech innovation (digitized academic materials, augmented by several rich open-source learning materials like Khan Academy, accessible dynamically per the learning context) with operational innovation (enabling kids to develop public-speaking skills and leverage peer-to-peer learning). 

Their investment in a vast repository of quizzes encourages kids to self-learn any topic, overcoming teacher-quality handicaps. School-In-A-Box (SIAB) is an offline content server containing the best holistic learning content, requiring no internet connection to operate. The locally set up server creates a WiFi hotspot that any WiFi-supporting device can connect to for accessing the content.

Some salient features of the School-In-A-Box solution include its complete independence from internet connectivity, allowing seamless access to educational content even in remote areas. It supports local languages, making education more accessible and relatable for students. 

The solution integrates a complete virtual school workflow, including a Smart Class setup, enhancing the teaching and learning experience. A remote monitoring dashboard facilitates easy oversight and management. The system supports multiple device connectivity without buffering issues, ensuring smooth access for all users. 

Additionally, it incurs zero data usage costs, making it economically viable. The solution also promotes peer interaction and hybrid learning, fostering a collaborative and engaging educational environment.

WHEELS, in collaboration with Moinee, is breaking key education barriers (cost, access, language, child safety, student-teacher ratio) to ensure every child has the right to quality education and fair opportunities in life. Traditionally, kids from rural schools lack strong speaking skills; however, the Moinee model ensures they develop strong speaking and social skills alongside academic success. 

WHEELS aims to bring School-In-A-Box to as many of 3 million schools (with approximately over 300 million students) as possible over the next decade. Since its launch in 2017, the Moinee solution has already catered to over 300,000 young learners in their first languages through 900+ School-In-A-Box setups in government schools, community learning centres, and vocational centres across 15 states of India.

WHEELS is leveraging its IIT alumni ecosystem capacity (leaders in corporate roles and CSR budgets, IAS officers in central and state governments, NGO partners, Education Council’s community, etc.) to help take Moinee innovation to schools across India, welcoming support from all alumni and professional communities.

 

 

(The views and opinions expressed in this article are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of New India Abroad)