Tiruvannamalai gets ‘Kalam VidyaGanga Digital School’

 V Ravichandran, Chairperson, eVidyaloka Trust, believes VidyaGanga is not just a project or a programme. “It is a groundswell movement that will open a page of education in everyone’s life just as Dr V Kurien ensured that there is enough milk for everyone in this country.”

 As he explained to DTNext, “The inauguration happened online and our first five students enrolled today. They will experience the Re 1 per day school. VidyaGanga will connect students and teachers, providing them with ready-toconsume content resulting in learning for all – anywhere, anytime. A multi-modal delivery model that includes digital classrooms set up in village schools, ‘Learn from Home’ via mobiles, television, radio and cable operators, will ensure last mile delivery.”

 V Krishnamurthy, former Deputy Director, BITS Pilani, at the e-inauguration, said, “this digital school initiative will be a turning point in the lives of millions of children of this country.”

 Today, eVidyaloka claims to deliver one million student learning hours annually. Backed by 2500+ volunteer teachers from across 280+ cities in 20 countries the online, two-way live interactive classes reaches 20,000+ children in 245 villages, spread over 11 states from Himalayas to Kanniyakumari. Classes are conducted in seven different languages. Noting that 90 pc of the domestic education system is driven by rural government schools, Brinda Poorna, CEO, sought to highlight the two chronic challenges: “acute teacher shortage and quality of learning experience. eVidyaloka is a social enterprise with a vision to create a knowledgeable and empowered rural India, through quality education. We are talking about 32 billion student learning hours every year. The model of eVidyaloka connects children in the most remote parts of rural India as volunteers across the country and the Indian Diaspora, leverage the power of technology and community connectors.” 

Ravichandran also explained the marketplace technology platform with a ready-to-consume content that is a “scalable, extensible and layered architecture embedded with machine learning and artificial intelligence capabilities. Essentially, eVidyaloka, will be building on its existing platform, Jupiter, which has been tested and used for over seven years now.” It aims to reach 1 crore students across thousands of villages by 2023.