NGO Go Dharmic has partnered with education tech specialist hub, Klik2learn, to provide a digital English language course to children at Rantanpur Middle School, Gandhinagar, India.
Addressing the digital divide in education within India, the pilot program uses children’s smartphones to provide teachers and 50 children with licenses from the digital learning hub.
The full English language course Journey 2 Basic Skills, teaches basic literacy and numeracy skills via smartphone enabling children to adapt their educational needs for home learning.
With the help of Klik2learn, 50 children attending Ratanpur Middle School, Gandhinagar will be able to continue their education online, despite the closure of their school throughout the pandemic. Go Dharmic’s project lead, Deependra Bhadourja, and his team will visit the school in the coming weeks for proper orientation and updates of the program with teachers and students.
Championing digital learning, Rapantur Middle School’s Principal is an inspiring leader who wants his teaching team and students to excel in all areas —life, study and work. He advocates this program for better sustainability budgets on education.
Digitising education is a key goal for Klik2learn as these partnerships help close the literacy gap and provide a pathway for all irrespective of background or resources. Ann Attridge, CEO of Klik2learn highlights the importance of such collaboration. “Before Journey 2 English, no one had attempted to teach complete beginners to read, write and understand English via a mobile phone. We wanted to reach the widest global audience possible so our approach had to be creative – translation was out of the question. Go Dharmic are our ideal partner- supplying that crucial local knowledge, relationships and sharing our vision to improve lives through education.”
The course Journey 2 Basic Skills won a British Council ELTon award for Equality, Diversity and Inclusion in 2020.
Klik2learn has been guided by local partner Go Dharmic on the best way to deliver and engage the children with the digital course. Regular call conferences with the local Go Dharmic team ensure that the project runs smoothly and provide a channel to share children’s progress as well as teacher and student feedback.
Interactive and engaging methods are a key way to make learning fun for children. Klik2learn has applied this knowledge and created a Monkey character to take the children on a tour of the course, so they can see how it works. The children have been asked to name the monkey and have come up with a list of great names. The new name will be announced when all the children complete 50% of the course.
Hanuman Dass, Founder & Chairman of Go Dharmic notes that “the schools have been closed for over a year, and young children have been impacted greatly. This online intervention & partnership with Kilk2learn will enable access to online learning and teach children valuable skills that they would not otherwise access. Therefore, we look forward to reaching as many children as possible and ensure learning never stops.”
Mahesh Chaudhari of Ratanpur Middle School shares that “Klik2learn and Go Dharmic are trying to benefit the students by helping them improve their English language skills, especially those students who earlier were very poor in the subject. In the course of these 3-4 months, students will learn the basics of English (such as how to write, speak and pronounce easily). I really wish that this Kilk2learn and Go Dharmic initiative could be applied all around the world in every school to benefit more students!”
