Helping 90,000 Odia students learn during lockdown
By Sibabrata Choudhury, Aveti Learning
Ever since the lockdown began on the 22nd of March, Ranjita hasn’t stepped into her school. For all of us in India, it’s been a challenging time, but for our young students, life has changed dramatically as well. Forced to stay home, Ranjita often finds it difficult to keep up with the confusing demands of remote learning — but she’s determined. Her favourite subject is biology and she plans to be a scientist one day.
Nearly two months have passed and it’s still difficult to predict when schools will reopen. While countries are at different points in their COVID-19 infection rates, worldwide there are currently more than 1.2 billion children in 186 countries affected by school closures due to the pandemic. With approximately 60,000 schools in Odisha, over 6 million students in K-10 grades are out of class and without any learning aids to help them study.
Before the disruption, Ranjita and her classmates were using the Aveti Learning platform at her school. The smart classes Aveti offers are fun and engaging, with interesting videos and countless exercises that help teachers teach and students learn.
During this unprecedented time, all of us at Aveti Learning remain committed to our many students and our partnering schools. We know most of our students study best in the local language, Odia, and are from lower income groups. Not wanting them to fall behind, our content team got to work immediately, creating a schedule and launching live classes that began on the 30th of March. It took less than a week!
These sessions are now streamed daily for all students in need of quality study material during the lockdown. A sample schedule is attached which covers various subjects such as Mathematics, Science and Social Studies. Sundays are devoted for Guest Lectures where we invited eminent experts to share their experiences and speak to the students on topics such as historical places and self-motivation.
Within the first week, over 20,000 students enrolled from 400 schools across multiple provinces in Odisha. Now, through the first week of May, viewership has touched the one million mark with a total viewership time of 1,21,600 hours — equivalent to 1,62,000 classroom sessions!
The sessions include interactive learning, video lessons, live lectures as well as assignments to students. The response has been overwhelming with over 14,000 assignments submitted during this period. Overall, in a month we have reached more than 90,000 students!
With the COVID lockdown in its third phase here in India, we are always striving to keep connected with our students and provide them the right tools to continue their studies. Toward this end, we have launched the new improved Aveti Learning App with several first-time features such as online and off-line versions.
Our App also offers integrated learning solutions that include chapter-wise lessons with concurrent assessment for the students studying in Odia medium. Based on the progress of the lessons, the children are provided with assignments. The students can choose either automated evaluation or instructor-graded evaluations which allow students to get personalized feedback. The improved App has several user-friendly features and is easy to navigate.
We have over 6 million students in grades K-10 in Odisha, out of which about 1.5 million are in grades VIII to X. With a few exceptions, mobile penetration with internet connectivity has reached almost all villages and urban centers. The platform is in place, the system is working, and it is our hope that many more students, just like Ranjita, can continue their learning and studies amidst the lockdown. In this time of unprecedented crises, we are happy to help.
