5 Ways In Which Teachstack Is Empowering Rural Education India

“True education must correspond to the surrounding circumstances or it is not a healthy growth”. – Mahatma Gandhi

Indeed, education is dependent on the willingness of students and teachers alike – nothing more. Differences like geographical limitations, infrastructure, or social limitations are the boundaries that are being torn down bit by bit in today’s world. This is critical in order to enhance the range of education beyond borders. 

India is rapidly advancing towards digital education, backed by the rising adoption of digitization by schools, colleges, and other institutions. There are other factors as well like increasing internet penetration and soaring demand from students which are contributing to this consistent growth rate. 

According to a report by RedSeer Consulting, the online education market (higher education and lifelong learning market) in India is forecast to reach nearly US$ 5 billion by 2025. This is mainly due to the Government’s focus on designing online education programs.

Other important factors include strengthening digital infrastructure across the country and catering to the rising demand for upskilling among students.

But to usher in a new pedagogy of learning, the first and foremost requirement is support from the government. The transition from chalkboard teaching to prompt, flexible online teaching requires appropriate technology-enabled learning. Digital education has often been considered a viable solution for Rural India to address the existing gaps in imparting education. This is because digital education can ensure the accessibility of quality education anywhere, at anytime. 

Digital India Education – Educational Directives By the Govt in Support Of Online Classroom Learning: 

National Digital Educational Architecture (NDEAR)

In the Union Budget 2021-22, the Indian government established the National Digital Educational Architecture (NDEAR) to strengthen digital infrastructure and support activities related to education planning. The NDEAR aims to offer distinct education ecosystem architecture for the advancement of digital infrastructure in the country and guarantee the autonomy of stakeholders, especially states and UTs.

PM eVIDYA Programme

The Government introduced the PM eVIDYA program in May 2020 to make e-learning more accessible for Indian students. The idea was to promote & strengthen digital education in India. The programme aims to converge all activities related to online/digital education and is expected to benefit approximately 25 crore school students.

Under this, the top 100 universities were permitted to begin online courses, provide better learning prospects to 3.7 crores higher education students and enhance e-learning by relaxing the regulatory framework for distance/open/online education.

DIKSHA

In September 2017, the government introduced DIKSHA (Digital Infrastructure for Knowledge Sharing), a national portal for school education, to offer school curriculum-based engaging learning materials to students, teachers, and parents. The portal supports over18 Indian languages and has been implemented by 35 states & UTs.

ePathshala Portal

In 2015, the government launched the ePathshala portal to build a resource store for educational videos, audios, flipbooks, etc. Resources on the portal are available in multiple Indian languages such as Hindi, English and Urdu and can be accessed via smartphones, laptops, desktops and tablets.

NISHTHA

In FY 2021-22, the National Initiative for School Heads and Teachers’ Holistic Advancement (NISHTHA) – Phase II was launched at the secondary level to tailor modules for online education. As per the Union Budget 2021-22, approximately 5.6 million teachers will be trained under the NISHTHA training programme in FY 2021-22.

Along with these, other digital initiatives taken by the government include: 

• Shiksha Vani for widespread use of radio 
• The Central Board of Secondary Education’s (CBSE) podcast
• Sign language content on the National Institute of Open Schooling (NIOS) website/YouTube
• Digitally Accessible Information System (DAISY) for accessing special e-content for hearing and visually impaired learners  
• Free Open-source Software for Education (FOSSEE).

5 Ways In Which Teachstack Website Is Empowering Rural Education In India

TeachStack is a one-stop solution, catering to the classroom needs of teachers and students alike. Our mission – to democratize online education across the globe. With this mission in mind, our proprietary solution offers you the following benefits: 

• Scalability: Teachstack is designed to offer high scalability to millions of users and withstand high spikes in traffic without disruption.
• Secure Installation: Teachstack can be easily integrated with the ready to deploy plug-and-play approach.
• Compatibility: Teachstack has been optimized for all popular mobile platforms and offers easy compatibility with most mobile OS.
• Low Bandwidth Support: Teachstack has been tested across multiple terrains for over 500,000 concurrent users to ensure it can operate in low-connectivity situations.
• Low Data Consumption: With as low as 200mb consumption for a 1.5 hour call, each session in Teachstack does not require high data consumption, making it easily manageable for students and teachers alike.

Conclusion

Optimized classroom learning is only possible in Rural India if we consider each hurdle on a case-by-case basis and integrate one uniform solution that covers it all.Teachstack solves this problem by being a uniquely customizable, video-conferencing solution  – rural educators have at their fingertips a scalable-ready-to-use model solution. 

This can be used to empower children of any leg of society, without the boundaries associated with geographical distances from home to school, or even accessibility to a classroom-like facility. 

References

1. https://www.highereducationdigest.com/digital-education-barriers-in-rural-india/
2. https://www.ibef.org/blogs/digital-education-initiatives 
3. https://redseer.com/newsletters/online-higher-education-to-grow-10x-over-the-next-5-years/