Poverty Reduction through IT

Problem Statement: To reduce poverty levels and empowering the poor to create wealth for
themselves by improving educational facilities with the help of IT

Educational Facilities in India:

Percentage of Schools having Regular Head Master/Teacher: 43.97%
Around 10% of schools in India have only 1 teacher/school
30% of schools didn't received School Development Grant
Percentage of Schools having Pre-Primary Facilitates is just 13%
Only 54% schools have basic facilities like blackboard
Around 39.4% teachers in India are not even graduate

Critical Factors: As per UNICEF-
Of Indias 700,000 rural schools, only one in six have toilets deterring children especially
girls from going to school, and if enrolled, in remaining there.

In addition are cultural factors: continuing discrimination against the girl child plays a
crucial role in creating resistance around sending girls to school.

The persistence of class and caste differences and the prevalence of child labor further
complicate this scenario, obstructing both girls and boys from having equal opportunities
to education.

The education system is inadequately developed - wracked by a shortage of resources,
schools, classrooms and teachers.

Often, due to the resulting, poor quality of teaching, many children drop out before
completing five years of primary school and many of those who stay on, learn little.


Challenges faced:
1. Financial Constraints
2. Lack of Infrastructure
3. Unavailability of teachers
4. Cultural Issues
5. Lack of Awareness
6. Transportation

As per latest statistics, the literacy rate among urban population is 84.1 percent while it is 67.8
for rural population



Alternatives:

1. Virtual Classes:
Virtual classes are carried out in almost 400 schools across India. But these classes are
often used for higher education rather than primary education. Also the reach to rural
India is very limited. There are plenty of social welfare organizations, which are trying
hard to educate children. But their main challenge is access to these areas and the lack of
availability of teachers.

One solution to this problem is to set up classroom with just one computer and a
projector, which will stream the basic courses with the help of network connection.
Classes can be either previously recorded or live depending on the availability of
resources. By using this approach we can attract more people towards this cause as
people can teach from their home/work place on the regular basis with the help of
internet.

2. Tablet for every student:
A common virtual classroom may not give an idea whether every individual student is
benefiting from the plan. Some students may drop out in the middle due to various
reasons like transportation difficulties.

Providing low cost tablets in cooperation with the government will be effective idea to
keep track of the education level of each student. An application will be installed in the
tablet, which will give the students basic education and which will be capable of tracking
the progress in learning. This will eradicate the problem of transportation to the
classrooms, which is an additional cost to the children.
Cost of Aakash tablet is Rs 1000 (min). So the overall cost of this project is very high.
Also we can't ensure the appropriate usage of these tablets.

3. Sponsoring a child from revenue through e-commerce:
Financial constraint is another major hindrance towards improvement of education in
rural India. One solution to this can be sponsoring a child. The schools in the rural areas
can encourage the students to make craft works or other gift goods. With the help of e-
commerce, schools can sell these goods anywhere in India. With the profit from this,
schools can take care of their operating costs and can provide free/low cost education to
the children.
Advantages with this alternative is
a. Opportunity of education to poor children
b. Additional revenue to schools
c. Students acquiring new skills by making these goods.

4. Educational Channel in Radio:
Common and popular media in the rural areas is radio. It is also the cheapest media to
broadcast the data. Most of the rural families have access to radio.
A new channel, which will have only educational content, will help the children in the
rural areas to get the basic education. The cost incurred by each family for this method of
education will be almost nil. Another advantage of this alternative is that the whole
family can make use of this facility and hence the coverage of this initiative will be very
large.
As per census 2011, nearly 200 million people in India still don't have access to basic
assets like transistor or radio. So through this method nearly 40% penetration can be
achieved.

5. Awareness Campaign:
Social stigma is another major hindrance towards education development in rural areas.
The only way to solve this is effective campaigns to make people aware about the
importance of education to sustain. Even though many campaigns are already happening
around the country, those campaigns dont get a proper reach throughout India.
A solution to this can be broadcasting video campaigns and interviews of rural people
who prospered with the help of education. Broadcasting of these campaigns can be with
done through a volunteer in each village. A main center to make these campaigns can be
set up anywhere in the country. These campaigns will be sent via Internet to all the
volunteers in each village. With the help of laptops, they can show these campaigns to
each family in the village.