By Ronita Torcato
Encouraged by commendable success in Varanasi District, IIT Madras Pravartak Technologies Foundation, the Technology Innovation Hub of IIT Madras,has partnered with ‘Vidya Shakti’ to take education to the rural areas of Uttar Pradesh through Online Classes and Virtual Reality (VR).
Established to tackle the ‘knowledge gap’ created by COVID-19 between students from the urban and rural areas, the Initiative has been successfully implemented in 100 villages of Varanasi District with the sessions conducted in Hindi medium for students of Classes 6th to 8th. Classes highlight the fundamentals of languages as well as maths and science.
IIT Madras Pravartak Technologies Foundation is funded by the Department of Science and Technology, Government of India, under its National Mission on Interdisciplinary Cyber-Physical Systems.
‘Vidya Shakti’ is an initiative of OpenMentor, formed in 2009 as a Corporate Social Responsibility ( CSR) of Softsmith Infotech Private Limited to cater to the online education and skilling of students in the country. It conducts online courses in industry-relevant software skills besides providing recorded sessions and online exams for the students to practice and do self-evaluation.
Rural interaction centres (RICs) operated in Tamil Nadu were a great success during the academic year 2022-23, and encouraged IIT Madras to extend the concept to other states.
Likewise, the RICs established at Uttar Pradesh, under the Vidya Shakti project will work towards improving the Gross Enrolment Ratio in the country, according to an IIT Madras release.
STEM Teachers take VR Headsets to classes to ‘act’ on the educational content and enable students to ‘feel’ the environment through the sensors. Short 3D videos are utilized for each concept in science and maths. The visualization sessions are made interactive through Q&A sessions to make the experience memorable for students.
Elaborating on the initiative, Prof. V. Kamakoti, Director, IIT Madras, said, “It is our duty to motivate young children specially from rural India to take up higher education and provide the necessary guidance to them.
The project involves a STEM Tutor carrying three to four VR devices for each session. The tutor visits two schools daily, one in the morning and one in the afternoon. The concept is explained briefly after which the students, in small batches, view the VR videos and ‘feel’ the subject. Students are asked questions by the tutor, while the video is on. By ‘telling’ the experience, students rapidly develop more responsiveness, communication and participation, Prof Kamakoti said.
Speaking on the initiative, P. Nagarajan, Managing Trustee, Open Mentor Trust, Vidya Shakti, said, “Due to shortage of teachers and mass migration of teachers from rural areas to urban, village kids do not have access to additional complementary tuition classes. Our online classes bridge this gap. Our Virtual Reality kits allow the kids to visualize what they study.
The Vidya Shakti initiative is characterized by live online class in the mother tongue,slow teaching pace,
use of Simulation Software for experiments, and daily aptitude questions to get students future-ready.
We aim to reach every child in every village, through this scalable model.”
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