Vineet and Anupama Nayar are betting $100 million that their low-tech tools will get students to learn in India’s notoriously ineffective rural schools
A big part of the solution to getting young children to learn math in the poorest, most educationally backward parts of the world may be just simple items such as coloured rings on strings, plastic blocks of different sizes and multihued circles, triangles and squares. “The kids take a lot of interest when we use these things. They don’t see it as work then,” says Revati Mathyal, a teacher in a northern India school who’s working with a class of 16 students in a mix of grades one through five. “When we use traditional methods of teaching math, it takes time for them to understand. This is all so colourful and attractive.”
The strategy seems to be working. Before it was adopted, only 41 percent of second-grade students surveyed in Uttarakhand, the Himalayan state where the school is located, could do simple addition. This has now risen to 91 percent. Similarly, the share of students who can do simple subtraction jumped from 33 percent to 89 percent; for multiplication it went from 25 percent to 83 percent; and for division, 15 percent to 73 percent.
Vineet Nayar, a former vice chairman and chief executive of the information-technology giant HCL Technologies, and his wife, Anupama, are behind this effort. Their New Delhi-based Sampark Foundation is rolling out kits with these child-friendly teaching aids to 50,000 government schools and 3 million students across Uttarakhand and another poor state southeast of there, Chhattisgarh. (A smaller-scale programme is also afoot in Jammu & Kashmir.) The kits cover 23 basic math concepts.
Esta historia es de la edición August 19, 2016 de Forbes India.
Comience su prueba gratuita de Magzter GOLD de 7 días para acceder a miles de historias premium seleccionadas y a más de 9,000 revistas y periódicos.
Ya eres suscriptor ? Conectar
Esta historia es de la edición August 19, 2016 de Forbes India.
Comience su prueba gratuita de Magzter GOLD de 7 días para acceder a miles de historias premium seleccionadas y a más de 9,000 revistas y periódicos.
Ya eres suscriptor? Conectar
Home-Cooked Meal Is Now Greatly Valued
The pandemic has also brought with it an improved focus on hygiene, use of technology in dining, rise of cloud kitchens and resurgence in popularity of Indian ingredients
Paytm 3.0 - Reaching Near Breakeven In Two Years
As of 2020, Vijay Shekhar Sharma’s super app for financial services had run up losses in thousands of crores. Now, as digital payments gets yet another boost courtesy Covid-19, he’s hopeful of reaching near breakeven in two years
THE PANDEMIC HAS CAUSED WOMEN GREATER LABOUR PAIN
Covid-19 has shown that women are more likely to face the brunt of job losses than men, and find fewer opportunities when they want to resume. That apart, several have to deal with increased hours of unpaid work at home and even domestic abuse
LEADERSHIP WILL BE ABOUT SEEING THE BIGGER PICTURE
Leaders must not only guard their teams first during a crisis, but also deal with stakeholders with respect and dignity. And apart from pursuing business goals, they should remain committed to our planet and the environment
PHILANTHROPY SHOULD BE HUMBLE, BUT NOT MODEST
Apart from building a flexible and resilient framework for the future, philanthropists, civil society and the government must work in tandem so that every rupee is absorbed on the ground
INTEGRATED HEALTH CARE, TECH WILL DISRUPT SECTOR
While clinical research will get a boost, having a skilled workforce and public spending on health care will be challenges in the near term
DIGITALISATION WILL HELP IN VALUE CREATION
As the pandemic brings technology and innovation to the core of business and daily life, the next decade will see about 150 million digital-first families in India
Industry 4.0: Climate Revolution?
Augmenting sustainability alongside digital capabilities is an economic, competitive and global opportunity for India’s businesses, but regulations need to reflect intent
EV Dream Still Miles Away
Electric vehicles have remained a buzzword in India for years. But not much has moved on ground due to high upfront costs, range anxiety and charging infrastructure
Living Waters
A virus has caused us to scramble for oxygen but our chokehold on the environment is slowly strangling the very waters that breathe life into us. The virus is a timely reminder: We are merely consumers, not producers of life’s breath on this planet
