“Social inclusion through digital inclusion” – A case study.

Avishek Banerjee

Soumava Banerjee

BETCE Jadavpur University

EDUCATION PROBLEMS IN RURAL AREASWhen we talk about education in India, we can’t just talk about how

education is in urban cities of India, without going deep into rural education that constitutes almost 90% of the schools being located in rural areas. Recent studies have shown how the face of education in rural parts of the country have developed to a great extent, but some remote areas still do need a serious check up with children failing to receive basic quality education.

The most common problems that hinders the growth of education in rural India can be pointed out as

Lack of proper transportation.

Most villages have poor connectivity from one place to another and that is often one of the main reason why, despite efforts by local governing bodies to build schools, often go in vain. Children, most of the time have to walk miles to reach these government funded schools and this often demotivate them to attend school on a regular basis.

Income ProblemsPeople belonging to remote rural areas have meager incomes, which at times is too less to sustain a family

of maybe four or five. Most likely, children from these families won’t be sent to schools, instead would be asked to assist the earning member of the family to add up some extra income. On the other hand, teachers in rural educational centers in villages are paid poorly, often leading to lack of attention by teachers, ultimately forcing the students to suffer.

Lack of proper infrastructureLack of proper infrastructure at these rural schools is also a big concern. Most of the schools don’t have

proper classrooms, teaching equipment, playgrounds and even basic facilities like clean toilets. Thus, the poor condition of schools are big reasons to drive away students.

CONRIBUTION OF THE ELDERLY PEOPLE IN THE SOCIETY

These people are faced with numerous physical, psychological and social role changes that challenge their sense of self and capacity to live happily.

Mainly after retirement people experience loneliness and depression either as a result of living alone or due to lack of close family ties and reduced connections with their culture of origin, which results in an inability to actively participate in the community activities.

The knowledge of these people remain almost unused as they are not involved in any kind of social contribution after their retirements.

Now The Social Informatics Group, IIM-CIIMC comes with a solution of utilising these unused

knowledge of the elderly people to give education to those children of rural areas through a project “Social inclusion through digital inclusion” which involves -

Elderly can teach , thus, becoming

‘remote teachers’ or ‘virtual grandparents’

Via a social media platform using Web

2.0 technology, Owlish Oracle

Provide education to the rural children who

are deprived of facilities for basic

education

Our role as interns in this project

As Summer Interns at IIM-C,

we carried out pilot study on an

elderly and a child –

Conducting study sessions

online involving the participants,

Supervising the online classes,

Recognizing the problems faced

by the participants,

Providing possible

remedies of the problems faced,

Writing out a detailed

qualitative report on the study that was carried out

for future reference & help

of the researchers

involved.

Giving feedbacks regarding the

problems faced during the sessions.

The Volunteers for This Intern

Mrs. Ila Banerjee, the elderly, a

woman of eighty years of age

volunteered to teach the child.

She is a resident of Sealdah in

Kolkata, W.B. She resides with

her two sons and their family

The child concerned, Aryan Shaw, a class

4 student of St. Pauls . He resides with his parents at Sealdah.

Sessions on Owlish Oracle

Both the teacher and the student were given tutorials for accessing Owlish Oracle.

The elderly teacher scheduled and conducted online classes with the child on the other end.

She shared, discussed and taught the study material that were provided to her.

The child actively participated in the sessions that were conducted.

Each session ran for a length of 30 minutes to 45 minutes

The subjects that were taught to the child broadly include mathematics (long divisions, multiplications) and science(pollution).

Socio-economic impact (child’s end)

SUCCESS OF OWLISH ORACLE

INCREASE IN LITERACY RATES IN

RURAL AREAS

BETTER JOBS FOR RURAL

YOUTH

HIGHER INCOME FOR

RURAL YOUTH

BETTER STANDARD OF LIVING OF THE

RURAL PEOPLE

DEVELOPMENT OF THE

ECONOMY AS A WHOLE

Socio-economic impact (elderly’send)

ADVANCEMENT OF THE SOCIETY & ECONOMY

UTILIZATION OF THE UNUTILISED SOCIAL CAPITAL

HEALTHY & PRODUCTIVE AGEING OF THE ELDERLY

INCREASING NUMBER OF ELDERLY GETS ENGAGED IN PRODUCTIVE ACTIVITY

SUCCESS OF OWLISH ORACLE

Suggestion as an Engineer

We have filled the questioners provided to us

and noted the result on both sides. A mathematical model can be constructed with the grandparent and the students response to the owlish oracle platform with the help of the data taken from the case study.

Drawbacks of Owlish oracle

The first and the foremost problem faced on Owlish Oracle is the internet connectivity problem.Owlish Oracle requires a high speed internet preferably at least a 3G connection. So if we have slower internet or internet connectivity less than 3G it seriously hampers the video conference, causing the video to freeze or the PowerPoint presentation to become inactive. Their remains no synchronization in the student and grandparent side when a video is being uploaded .This problems can be solved only by a good net connection. But the avaibility of such net connections at rural side will be a great challenge

A technical problem faced in Owlish Oracle is that, Owlish Oracle demands both the elderly and the child to be well versed in computers. Keeping in mind that the project is to be applied in rural areas, this can emerge as a serious hindrance to our objective of “social inclusion through digital inclusion”.

Before any session in the Owlish Oracle involving both the child and the elderly there arises a need for trial sessions between the supervisors for the free flow of the power point presentations & slides during the actual session. This can turn out to be a big problem later and might not be feasible when the project is actually applied.

Sometimes uploading of videos and power point presentation take considerable time causing the child to become impatient and thereby making it difficult to continue the session

Suggestions for Improvement

Providing faster internet connection

and reducing the chances of sudden freezing of videos.

Educating rural children about

computers and its uses.

Providing small computer courses to the urban elderly so

that they can conduct sessions in “Owlish Oracle” on

their own.

Making the website more user friendly or uploading adequate tutorials on how to operate Owlish Oracle

CONCLUSION

The success of Owlish Oracle depends upon the ability toovercome the earlier mentioned problems.

Having resolved these problems, the positive externalitiesemanating from the success of Owlish Oracle onto theeconomy and the society at large, will be enormous.