Shikhya: When education illuminates the darkness of existence
By Sarba Roy
For countless people, “struggle” and “life” are synonymous. For an ordinary human being, a typical day is nothing but a series of tiny battles for existence.
Yet among all those ordinary people, there exist a few who choose to live extraordinarily due to their desire to realize their potential. This story is about a naïve and innocent 11-year-old girl from a tiny and forgotten village in India whose desire to be educated surpassed her struggles of getting two square meals a day.
This is a story of Swagupta Madkami, the daughter of a humble farmer from an economically backward tribal family in Malkangiri, one of the remotest districts of Odisha.
She is one of the countless children who have big dreams in their little eyes, sparkling with possibilities of becoming something when they grow up. For that dream to come true, she wanted to study in a school that would help her get the best education and fill her stomach with nutritious food, so that she could use all her abilities to study hard and become a source of strength for her family.
She realized the easiest path to a good education was to enroll in a private school. However, the harsh reality dawned on her that the monthly fees were far beyond her family’s income. In her tender childhood, she realized that to fly to her kingdom of dreams, she needed to go through a tough test of hard work, courage, and determination. Life was mocking her, but she would not give up so quickly.
One day in her village, as the sunbeam slowly drove away, her teacher told Swagupta that her dream could come true, if she could make it to the prestigious “Jawahar Navodaya Vidyalaya(JNV).” Powered with best in class education, nutritious meals, and hospitable living conditions but without any fees, JNV was the destination of meritorious students from low-income families who dared to dream big. Apart from the JNVs established by Central Government of India, the Odisha Government had established “Adarsha Vidyalaya (OAV)” with a similar model as JNVs.
Swagupta was delighted at the possibility of fulfilling her cherished dream of getting the best education without burdening her family with financial debt, yet she knew that the path wasn’t going to be easy. The JNV and OAV schools have limited seats for which students compete fiercely in a statewide entrance exam. The exam primarily evaluates the students by their analytical and language skills, something which Swagupta needed guidance on to improve her chances of cracking the test.
At this crucial point, Swagupta came across the “Shikhya” platform. Driven by a mission to make a difference in school education for unprivileged kids in Odisha and beyond, Shikhya uses a digital platform to provide best in class knowledge through video lectures and assignments. Shikhya offers a vast knowledge repository of all subjects in the Odia school curriculum from Standard 1 to 10, developed with an aim to build a strong foundation for students.
Apart from the regular curriculum, Shikhya also has a dedicated module on grooming the children for Jawahar Navodaya Vidyalaya and Adarsha Vidyalaya entrance exams. Apart from the training tutorials, it includes an exhaustive set of “mock tests” or “practice tests” to help the students get acquainted with the types and patterns of questions of JNV and OAV exams.
With nerves of steel and an iron-willed determination, Swagupta decided to use Shikhya to prepare herself for the entrance exams. She worked rigorously on the practice tests after watching the video lectures which helped her to close the knowledge gaps she had.
Even the worst of living conditions did not deter this little girl from dreaming big and working hard, and even the cosmos had to conspire to transform her uncertain possibilities into a beautiful reality.
In her first attempt in 2018, Swagupta qualified for Jawahar Navodaya Vidhyalaya, something that has made her humble family extremely proud. This was a step that would change the course of her life, empowering her with the greatest gift of education, giving her a fair chance to realize her potential in the face of countless challenges and hardships.
In addition to Swagupta, Shikhya’s learning platform has helped 8 bright students crack the JNV and 28 students clear the OAV exams from the poorest and remotest parts of Odisha in 2018. Two of them have qualified for the state level Science Olympiad, an event which was dominated by students from private schools.
These children are the embodiment of the phrase, “Impossible is nothing.” Shikhya hopes that the journey of these students which started with cracking the JNV and OAV entrance exams will undoubtedly continue to the IIT and AIIMS entrance exams as well.
Since 2014, Shikhya is empowering children across Odisha like Swagupta, to believe that they too can become “someone” in their lives. Shikhya wants them to know that they too can become a doctor, lawyer, engineer, astronomer or anything that they dream of becoming — that with their hard work, Shikhya can help them write their own destiny.
Like Swagupta’s journey, Shikhya’s path has been fulfilling but also filled with many challenges. Yet, deriving its inspiration from her, Shikhya hopes to make a difference in the lives of as many children as it can in the days, months and years to come.
For this, we need your support, as the journey of a thousand miles has just begun. In the words of Robert Frost, “We have miles to go before we sleep.”
