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Issue (What is the concern?)
Students in the villages of Chittorgarh & Udaipur were away from books & classrooms for the last 1.5 years due to Covid19 lockdowns. Online classes were limited to merely sharing notes over WhatsApp. As schools are reopening, Students (especially girls) are either dropping out of schools or opting for non-Science streams for further studies because of the unavailability of Science faculties & infrastructure in local schools. For instance, Govt Senior Secondary School in IDRA village is not even having a computer lab for its students. The local govt have schemes (document attached) that rely on 25% of public support (Jan-Bhagidari) from a donors (Bhamashahs) to stablish a computer lab in this school but the administration is finding it difficult to gather such a support. If these students remains away from basic computer education, their creativity will be diluted and they will remain incompetent before urban school students, who on the other hand are fortunate enough to get multidisciplinary education. The consequences of being away from STEM education today could keep these village students unskilled and unemployed in the near future.
Action (What are we going to do about it?)
Exposure is an initiative for rural school students. We will be setting up "EXPOSURE Labs" in village IDRA's secondary level school which will be equipped with not only good computer facilities, but also include IoT(Internet of Things) kits, AR/VR tools and a good infrastructure to support online collaborative learning & remote expert lectures. This program is for:
Students in the villages of Chittorgarh & Udaipur were away from books & classrooms for the last 1.5 years due to Covid19 lockdowns. Online classes were limited to merely sharing notes over WhatsApp. As schools are reopening, Students (especially girls) are either dropping out of schools or opting for non-Science streams for further studies because of the unavailability of Science faculties & infrastructure in local schools. For instance, Govt Senior Secondary School in IDRA village is not even having a computer lab for its students. The local govt have schemes (document attached) that rely on 25% of public support (Jan-Bhagidari) from a donors (Bhamashahs) to stablish a computer lab in this school but the administration is finding it difficult to gather such a support. If these students remains away from basic computer education, their creativity will be diluted and they will remain incompetent before urban school students, who on the other hand are fortunate enough to get multidisciplinary education. The consequences of being away from STEM education today could keep these village students unskilled and unemployed in the near future.
Action (What are we going to do about it?)
Exposure is an initiative for rural school students. We will be setting up "EXPOSURE Labs" in village IDRA's secondary level school which will be equipped with not only good computer facilities, but also include IoT(Internet of Things) kits, AR/VR tools and a good infrastructure to support online collaborative learning & remote expert lectures. This program is for:
- Making sure that kids in this school get access to basic computer education.
- Bringing cutting edge technologies close to these students by organizing technology exposure workshops, to make them experience & understand virtual and augmented reality, assembling robots and designing software on various development boards.
- Making school kids do Coding & tinkering projects. Trained Graduates of nearby engineering colleges will go to these village schools to train teachers & students.
We are already running a pilot program of Exposure workshops in Govt Sr. Secondary School, IDRA village from last few months and students participation is enchanting.
Activity Website: www.davefoundation.in/STEMImpact (What is the impact that we wish to create?)
Immediate Impact (1-2 yrs):
- The students will develop coding & tinkering skills when they are still in secondary level classes in village schools.
- More participation of village students in STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering & Math).
- Unique Hands-on projects on robots & technologies will boost confidence and thus reduce anxiety related to STEM education.
- Exposure Labs will generate employment & internship opportunities for recent grads to train teachers and students of village schools.
- Exposure Labs will inspire the next generations of innovators.
- Many of these kids aspire to be Civil Servants, Patwaris, Teachers and Lawyers. Village students who could not opt for STEM education will still be equipped with skillsets and working knowledge of technologies, which will help them in performing their aspired roles in a more insightful way.
- Together, the career exploration and tech project activities will help students understand where they might fit in the future workforce and how they could contribute to solving real-world problems using technology.
