Patna: Digital divide, the famous buzzword during the recent COVID-19 pandemic succinctly brought the prevalent disparities in education to the fore. Unlike the students of private schools, the children studying in the government schools had to mostly bear the brunt of the digital divide owing to their disadvantageous position in terms of the access to smart phones and other equipment needed to attend online cases including reliable internet.
In collaboration with UNICEF, the Education Department of the Bihar government had initiated several measures to address the digital divide and compensate for the learning loss. ‘Mera Doordarshan Mera Vidyalaya’ on DD Bihar for the students of IX-XII standard, e-LOTS (e-Library of Teachers and Students) containing the entire syllabus-based e-content for Class I to XII and online classes for the students of std. IX-XII through Unnayan App: Mera Mobile Mera Vidyalaya were some of the key initiatives.
Tablet Project for bridging Digital Divide
In partnership with the Education Department and a local NGO, the Tablet Project introduced by UNICEF in February 2022 in one of the aspirational districts, Purnea is another notable initiative in this regard.
The tablets procured by UNICEF have been distributed by the partner NGO, Rohini Science Club to 30 schools covering 2000 children – 1500 school going children and 500 out-of-school children (OOSC) – in 3 blocks, namely Kasba, Dhamdaha and Bhawanipur of the district. Currently, more than 600 children are using these tablets in each block. The low-cost tablets are uploaded with the appropriate educational content.
Pushpa Joshi, Education Specialist of UNICEF Bihar said that the Tablet initiative was envisaged to cater to the learning needs of both the school going and out-of-school children, especially belonging to the marginalized sections. The focus is on providing an efficient learning system to improve their learning ability and thereby overall educational performance. It is designed to make the learning process continue and manage students’ learning needs. Initially, OOSC spent time with FLN (Foundational Literacy and Numeracy) materials that helped them to enhance their learning abilities. Eventually, they were given tablets to access the content. She further added that training was imparted to all project members including the nodal teachers and facilitators to use the tab software provided by Literacy India. Moreover, hands-on sessions have been organized to understand how to connect the tab content with the textbook lessons.
Implementation of Tablet Project and learning improvements
Talking about the educational content, Tausif Reza, Nodal Teacher for the Tablet Project at Madhya Vidyalaya Dogachchhi, Kasba informed that the tablet contains separate content for the primary and upper primary students. While the Gyan Tantra app for std. I to V covers the basic concepts in Maths, Hindi and English including some gaming activities, subject-wise contents is available for std. VI to VIII. In the end of each chapter, fun-filled exercises have been given to test children’s overall learning. He added that children, especially girls are very enthusiastic about using the tablets and eagerly wait for their turn. Notably, the children have learned to operate tablets in much less time.
A std. VI student of the school, Babita Kumari is quite happy about getting the opportunity to studying with the tablet. She also loves to play the inbuilt games. Like fellow girl schoolmates, she is more excited to use the tablet as she has no access to any such gadget at home and this way is getting acquainted with the technical know-how to handle the advanced gadgets.
Appreciating the initiative, Vandana Kumari, Nodal Teacher at Malharia Madhya Vidyalaya, Kasba said that thanks to the tablets, the children have started taking more interest in studies and their concentration has also improved. After introducing the basic concepts and specific contents using the text-books and blackboard, 5-6 children each are made to sit in groups to practice the same using the tabs. This complementary exercise has helped the students to learn with much ease.
Muskan Kumari, class VIII student of the school said that tablet has helped her in many ways. With the help of explanatory photos and charts, she is able to understand the difficult concepts in Maths and Science. She also likes the assessment exercise that helps in instant evaluation of her performance and work harder for learning improvement. Using the tablet, she has also been able to compensate for her learning losses during the closure of schools during the pandemic.
Impact of Tablets on children’s performance
The impact of the Tablet Project was also measured. Basant Kumar Sinha, Education Officer, UNICEF Bihar said that Baseline and Endline assessments were done for Hindi and Maths with select sample of school going and Out-of-School Children. Question bank prepared by the Education Department was used for the learning assessment and average percentages were computed for both baseline and endline assessments. While this data is primarily used to supplement the school assessment data in case of school going children, this is the key data source for understanding the influence of the intervention on learning for the OOSC.
While comparing the baseline and endline assessment scores for school going children, an increment in average percentage of both Hindi and Maths was observed. The overall average percentage increase for Hindi and Maths were 30% and 37% respectively. As regards OOSC, girls have shown higher average percentage achievement in both baseline and end line assessments in Hindi and Maths. In other words, girls started off with better achievements than boys and eventually scored higher at the end.
Rajesh Kumar Paswan, Headmaster of Malharia Madhya Vidyalaya opined that this project has motivated the students towards studies. Children belonging to SC, ST and minority communities as well as their parents are very appreciative of this initiative. Not only the access to graded content as per the children’s wish has enhanced their learning levels, school attendance has also improved.
Overall, school going children are able to operate the tablets confidently and engage themselves in learning in a much more meaningful way than earlier. The tablet project has proved that the judicious integration of technology in education can make the difference and create a positive learning atmosphere in schools as well as for OOSC.
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