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WHEELS revolutionizes learning for underprivileged girls from Jaipur slums with 'School-In-A-Box'
Efforts included familiarizing participants with the offline smart knowledge server, conducting a baseline test for Grade 9 students, and engaging with Tinkering and Story Making Kits to foster creative thinking.
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According to a 2021 UNESCO report, India faces a significant shortage of over one million teachers, with 19 percent of teaching positions unfilled nationwide. This shortage is particularly severe in rural areas, where 69 percent of positions remain vacant. This teacher shortage directly impacts education quality, creating learning gaps. Additionally, rural schools often lack essential resources and technology, further limiting the implementation of modern teaching methods.
In response, WHEELS Global Foundation, in partnership with Moinee Foundation, introduced the "School-In-A-Box" initiative, offering fully digitized academic content to bridge the resource gap. WHEELS kicked off this initiative by enabling Vimukti Girls School, Jaipur, with the "School-In-A-Box” solution in offline e-learning mode. Vimukti is part of strategic deployments in five rural and tribal area schools in three districts of Rajasthan.
Vimukti Girls School, supported by WHEELS partner Edu-GIRLS, is a unique institution focusing on underprivileged girls from the slums of Jaipur, where many are at risk of being uneducated and forced into early marriage. It is a shining example of how empowering these girls with education, life skills, and the right mindset can change the trajectory of their lives.
The orientation and training sessions at Vimukti Girls School successfully introduced both teachers and students to innovative learning tools of School-in-a-box innovation. Highlights included familiarizing participants with the offline smart knowledge server, conducting a baseline test for Grade 9 students, and engaging with Tinkering and Story Making Kits to foster creative thinking.
Several months after the installation, the feedback from teachers and students at the school has been overwhelmingly positive. The solution is making a significant impact on the education of over 290+ students at the school. By providing access to a vast library of high-quality educational resources and interactive lessons from the supplementary modules sourced from open-source libraries via Internet, the program is empowering these young girls to explore subjects beyond their traditional curriculum.
The user-friendly interface and easy-to-navigate process of using the server enable the students to operate the technology independently, fostering self-learning and reducing their reliance on teachers. Additionally, the ability to connect to a smart TV allows the girls to view and study their course materials together, engaging in constructive debates that engender critical public-speaking skills.
Kirti Sharma, a teacher at Vimukti Girls' School, shares: “School-In-A-Box has been incredibly beneficial for our Vimukti girls. It offers access to a variety of digital apps all on one platform, including science experiments, Wikipedia, Coding, and more. The girls are also using educational tools like Quiz Academy, their favourite, which helps them review content through interactive quizzes. They particularly enjoy the Typing Tutor app, which has greatly improved their typing speed. SIB is more than just a device; it’s a gateway to vast knowledge.”
This innovative model is breaking key barriers to education, such as cost, access, language, child safety, and student-teacher ratios, ensuring that every child has the right to quality education and fair opportunities in life. WHEELS promotes this pioneering model, which has the potential to support over 70 percent of schools in India that suffer from chronic understaffing.
With this vision, WHEELS aims to bring School-In-A-Box to 3 million schools (with more than 200 million students) by 2030. WHEELS , by deploying such programs, aims to achieve the shared objectives of Technology-driven transformation of India’s 20 percent of “Rurban” population by 2030, 180m+ people, in support of India’s vision of becoming a developed economy by 2047.
The author is the Marketing and Communications Manager, WHEELS Global Foundation.
(The views and opinions expressed in this article are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of New India Abroad)
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