Google.org has today announced to grant a sum of 8.4 million US dollar to four Indian NGOs, which include Learning Equality, Million Sparks Foundation, Pratham Books StoryWeaver, and Pratham Education Foundation. Google is planning to enhance the learning experience by upscaling the work of these NGOs in the coming two years.
The full plan of Google is to support the nonprofit tech-based organization that is building innovative learning solution. The program will certainly help in refurbishing the India education system, which we know is in crisis. The analysis reports of various NGOs and Government bodies have suggested that 50% children in 5th grade cannot even solve a two-digit subtraction problem.
The Program will focus on 3 areas where technology can be used to improve the education quality. First is to make available quality learning material that can overcome language gaps. Second is to provide better training and support to teachers in India as they are key to educational outcomes. Finally, it is to support students outside classroom learning.
Pratham Books
@prathambooks @PBStoryWeaver a new way for reading stories… @Googleorg @GoogleIndia #Googleorg pic.twitter.com/NDysdaNIOL
— Techniblogic (@techniblogic) April 6, 2017
Pratham Books has created StoryWeaver, an online platform whose open source technology connects readers, authors, illustrators, and translators to create free stories that can be translated. All Storyweaver content is free and can be easily accessed, downloaded, or printed. Google is backing up the organization with a 3.6 million $ budget and with the support of google.org, Pratham books aim to increase their active users and books to more than 50%.
Pratham Education
@Pratham_India is a self driven, tablet based curricula to learn outside of the classroom @GoogleIndia #Googleorg pic.twitter.com/23DFbd3cfd
— Techniblogic (@techniblogic) April 6, 2017
The project has been given a budget of 3.1 million $ from google.org. The hybrid learning program of Pratham empowers students to use self-driven e-learning curriculum to learn outside of the classroom.
Million Sparks Foundation:
Great App for connect quality teachers at one place @Googleorg @GoogleIndia #Googleorg pic.twitter.com/4lA1ThPBki
— Techniblogic (@techniblogic) April 6, 2017
The Million Sparks Foundation with ChalkLit, a digital content platform, and social community. The project features high calibre teaching with lesson plans, learning modules, videos, etc. All the study materials are accessible by teachers via a lightweight mobile app.
Learning Equality:
The organization has built a free open-source software to bring online materials including books, video tutorials, and quizzes. They are basically providing study materials offline for students without the internet.
Well, Google.org is bringing these organizations all together, and with the expertise of google, they are helping them to accelerate their work.