More than half of the children attending government school in rural India do not even have the privilege to complain about online classes because they do not have access to a smartphone and an internet connection. In some rare cases, where these students have managed to get access to these facilities, they cannot use them for multiple reasons such as:

• They cannot afford buying internet plans on a regular basis.
• They are not literate in English which makes it difficult to use technological devices.
• They do not know how to use resources such as Google, YouTube and Khan Academy for educational purposes.

Furthermore, their parents are not educated and have low-paying jobs so they cannot get help from their parents or afford private tuition. The teachers from their school are not even conducting virtual classes because students lack the necessary infrastructure to access them.

Quality education was a problem in rural India before the pandemic. The majority of the students in government schools are unable to read, write and perform numerical calculations according to their age. Students of Kheowali village are no exception and their education has suffered greatly because of the pandemic.

While some of our team members with the help of local volunteers were able to educate 50+ students, it has become unsustainable. Most of the educated people in the village do not have the time and resources to volunteer and a higher number of students need help with education.

Statistics:

• 66% of India’s rural population lives in rural Indian but only 25.3% of them have access to the internet in comparison with 34% of the urban population with an internet access rate of 97.9%
• ‘Only 11% of children from rural areas had live online classes.” (The Hindu, 2020)

We are proposing to help the students by recruiting part-time teachers for a few months to help them with their studies until schools can start. Even if schools were to re-open from July, students will need additional help as they have been out of touch with their studies for over a year.

Each teacher will be paid $250 on a monthly basis. A teacher will have the capacity to teach 25~ students. Hence, $10 will be able to support the education of one student for a month. You can find more details about this in our cost breakdown.