COVID has divided educational scenarios into two eras, viz pre-COVID (usually dealing in face-to-face model and post-COVID era, which is more of digital education. But this sudden shoving of education into digital mode had its own bottlenecks and constraints. While according to a UNESCO COVID Monitoring website, approximately 1.72 billion learners have been affected due to the closure of educational institutions, 321 million Indian children were hindered in continuing education. Of course, these children belonged to the poor and underprivileged communities, who were already facing the wrath of no income, vulnerability to COVID, and other exigencies. Adding to the toil, at least 27 percent of students (NCERT survey) do not have access to smartphones or laptops to attend online classes.
The situation was no different in Delhi slums, where AROH Foundation has been implementing its flagship education projects like Padho aur Badho and remedial education project ‘RISE’ (Remedial Innovation in School Education) for more than a decade now, having covered over 50,000 needy children till date. In slums like Sangam Vihar, Mundka, Ghevra, or Rani Kheda, where the struggle is for food and survival, education takes a back seat, especially for the girl child. Due to familial lethargy towards education, government initiatives have not made an effect here. Despite talk of the strides Delhi’s education system has made in infrastructure and methodologies, the academic progress of slum children has been an uphill battle. And so, the need for project RISE, which integrates the educational, physical, and emotional well-being of the children by improving their educational needs, provisional nutritional and co-curricular activities was the need of the hour. The project is run in a hub and spoke model, wherein each cluster of 10 centers is run under one nodal center. In each class, 50 students (25 girls and 25 boys) are enrolled under one educator. It incorporates provisions for community engagement via door-to-door awareness, focus-group discussions, and rallies, among other activities. Educators at AROH maintain a direct link with school authorities to receive feedback about children on the aforementioned aspects.
Team AROH had been futuristic in their approach, as they integrated the Blended Learning Modules (BLM) pedagogy in RISE, which could cater to both face-to-face and digital education modes much before the advent of COVID. BLM is a uniquely designed audio-video curriculum easily grasped by the students and stays longer in their memories. RISE, a unique child-centric model focuses on the need and requirements of each child for his/her scholastic improvement, healthcare, and psychological and mental build-ups through a bouquet of interventions. The educators were well-trained while in service and TLMs, examination & evaluation SOPS were put in place a year before the COVID happened. Through these BLMs, RISE could support over 2000 children to continue their education in the COVID and subsequent two years of lockdown. The children whose families had migrated back to their native villages could also remain connected and were supported during the lockdown.
Delhi Slum Kids
A project coordinator at the AROH Foundation, said, “As victims of job loss and health crisis, parents of these children had no means to provide for online classes. RISE with its free online mode of teaching-learning methods ruled out investing any extra penny in this preparation.” RISE staff also doubled up as community welfare workers during the COVID lockdowns, facilitating relief work.
While Azim Premji University highlighted that around 82% of children lost the foundational ability of the previous year’s learning during COVID lockdown, we enquired RISE children about it. “No nothing is forgotten, Divya Didi (his educator) made us revise all concepts multiple times through video calls, online home works and also the exams kept happening during the lockdown.” Says Chintu, a class Vth student from one of the government-run schools in Mundka region of Delhi.
Another girl Tapasya (from Sangam Vihar cluster) says, “As soon as we returned to our RISE centers this year, we gave a lengthy exam again. Most of us had secured good marks there. We got to do OMR sheet exams too. It was new and exciting for us.”
Dr. Neelam Gupta, Founder President & CEO of AROH Foundation calls RISE a futuristic project and says, “Especially after COVID, RISE is proud to claim that learning never stopped even for a day, as the NGO was far-sighted enough to understand the digital shift of education much before. A key aspect of coping with Covid-19 was to ensure that the learning remains a continuous process virtually. That was an ideal time to accept technology and its latest offerings in order to make education delivery to students more efficient and make it more productive through online learning and assessments. Our vision was right, BLM was the right investment, and children with such good results are live evidence of that.
Also, RISE is not restricted to core areas of education and learning, it also doubles up its services to neutralize various social issues in the target communities. The educators also are given regular in-service training and capacity building. Parallel livelihood training like jewelry making, Rakhi making, and handicraft items from waste is done to ensure their livelihood and dignity even after RISE. Regular counseling of parents is done for improved retention and learning outcomes. Mothers are given personalized and community-based services under project ‘Shakti’ to deal with various issues related to women. Women groups are formed, trained, and placed back in communities as ‘Ambassadors of Change’. It’s a holistic approach to change the educational scenario in the most indigent communities.”
AROH has been working on many of its interventions, but the holistic growth of children has always been important to this NGO. The agenda was to enroll children in government schools, decrease dropouts and enhance learning outcomes. But with the advent of the Right to Education Act, the enrolment part of Padho Aur Badho (PAB) was not needed anymore, and so PAB was revamped into the RISE (Remedial Innovation in School Education) model. RISE started off in the year 2016 in the slums of Sangam Vihar and Mundka of Delhi. By far RISE has catered to more than 5000 children.
Besides Project RISE, AROH has its impact in the remotest locations of India, ranging from tough terrains of Meghalaya to Naxal-impacted red corridors in Chhattisgarh to aspirational districts of Sitamarhi, Bihar, and has led to the socio-economic alleviation of around 5 lakh people by far. Various projects by AROH like Jal Shakti, Swachh Vidyalaya Abhiyaan, Samagra Grameen Vikas Karyakram, Project addressing all 17 SDGs projects, Padho aur Badho have been appreciated and awarded by many national and international platforms including the United Nations Global Compact of India.