Hurdles deemed irrelevant

Goalpara District’s Mission Vidyashakti turned every obstacle into an opportunity to impart quality education to all, thereby raising the living standards of the populace

Goalpara, a remote district in Assam, has one of the lowest literacy rates in the country. Lack of quality teaching manpower, access issues due to difficult geography, high disaster proneness with annual floods, storms and lightning etc have further exacerbated the situation.

The Goalpara saga has been about using every obstacle as a learning step. With a population comprising mainly tribal groups and minorities, lagging in all HDIS, one of the lowest literacy rates, low learning outcomes, lack of quality educators, a difficult topography with sketchy communication and connectivity, providing quality education to all seemed an impossible task. The heterogeneity of the population made a "one size fits all" approach impractical, even counterproductive.

To provide education to all groups, district administration launched Mission Vidyashakti as a multi-pronged approach which has successfully bridged this gap. Mission Vidya Shakti began in 2018 with the objective to use innovation to overcome each constraint that prevented a child, a youngster or an adult from learning.

Over a period of two years, district administration introduced a plethora of targeted interventions and scalable measures tailored across demography and age groups resulting in marked improvements in learning. What is even more encouraging is the positive spillovers from "Vidyashakti".

It has impacted each sphere of life of this extremely vulnerable section of society, be it health, public awareness, financial inclusion or better livelihood options.

The old and dilapidated Anganwadi Centres in the district were revamped making these much more children friendly with essential facilities for the holistic development of young children. This led to a doubling of enrolment, improved attendance, much improved activity levels in the children and a pervasive sense of community ownership.