LUCKNOW: The Indian Institute of Technology (IIT) Kanpur has launched an initiative to impart online education to children belonging to rural areas of Uttar Pradesh.
Named ‘Online Rural Education Initiative (OREI)’, the initiative aims to provide quality education to village school children through its Ranjit Singh Rozi Shiksha Kendra (RSK).
The initiative, launched by the prestigious institution on Tuesday in the presence of UP Chief Secretary DS Mishra, is integrated with Unnat Bharat Abhiyan of the Government of India.
Its pilot programme was launched in two schools – Ram Janki Inter College, Bithoor, Kanpur and Bhartiya Gramin Vidyalaya – in the state capital Lucknow.
According to Rita Singh, OREI Project Executive Officer, “The mission of Ranjit Singh Rozi Shiksha Kendra is to ensure the right of every child to best quality education irrespective of their location.”
The project has been adopted by the UP Department of Education to be run in government secondary schools.
As per the UP chief Secretary, the number of rural schools to be covered under the programme will soon be expanded to 100 and later it would be implemented in all schools across the state.
In OREI, teaching is done from a smart classroom at IIT Kanpur where technology enables two-way communication between children in school classrooms and teachers at IIT Kanpur.
With the help of advanced technology, both parties can talk to each other in real-time and teachers can ensure that the classes are interactive in nature.
At present, OREI provides education to class IX and X students by conducting two classes daily. The plan is to add students of classes XI and XII to the project in the coming year.
According to Prof Abhay Karandikar, Director of IIT Kanpur, Ranjit Singh Rozi Shiksha Kendra is an in-house project set up by IIT-Kanpur to reach out to the nearby villages and contribute to the employability of rural youth.
“OREI is aimed at ensuring quality education to the rural children with the help of innovation and technology,” he added.
As per Prof Sandeep Sangal, Principal Investigator (PI) of RSK, the project is run on a voluntary basis by a large number of PhD scholars engaged in teaching under expert guidance.
“ The plan for the entire academic year is ready. It has been ensured while modulating the project that it is child-centric and allows backward planning design based on the learning objectives, tools, techniques content and assessments. The aim is to encourage active learning methods to make learning fun and interactive,” said Prof Sandeep Singh.
Prof HC Verma and team provide guidance for the tools and methods to use for hands-on learning.
In fact, the teaching under the project is mapped to the NCERT syllabus and is carried out in colloquial Hindi so as to make it comprehensible for rural children. The group is currently in the process of providing an academic helpline wherein the children can contact to get answers to their problems.
