The COVID-19 Pandemic not only brought out the nation's digital divide into the
open, but it also sped up attempts to make digital education accessible to everyone.
Over 67.6 per cent of Indian families now have access to a device, and nearly 27.9 per
cent of those households have purchased a smartphone for their child's education due
to school closures. Efforts to provide the appropriate digital infrastructure to enable
learning in this modern day are being undertaken under Samagra Shiksha with the
objective of ensuring engaging, joyful, equitable, and inclusive education.
5.3.11 Best practices show the way
It is innovative practices across the country that continue to reaffirm our faith in
the scope and possibilities for bridging the gaps in school education, and veritably
transforming it. Following are a few innovative initiatives that are transforming the
educational landscape in states.
yy Operation Kayakalp and Mission Prerna of Uttar Pradesh aim to saturate
infrastructure in schools in eighteen basic parameters and improve the quality of
education in 1.6 lakh schools with a special focus on foundational learning skills,
respectively.
yy Madhya Pradesh has initiated Shaikshik Samvad, or the CM Rise Teacher
Professional Development Programme, with the objective of professional
development of teachers in joyful and innovative methods of teaching and
learning.
yy Nadu Nedu of Andhra Pradesh is an initiative for transforming school infrastructure
over a period of three years over three phases, by provisioning for major and
minor repairs; toilets with running water; drinking water supply; painting of entire
campus; electrification; English labs; compound wall; kitchen sheds, etc.
yy In Gujarat, Daily Attendance is closely monitored through an online system at the
Command and Control Centre
yy Karnataka’s Student Achievement Tracking System (SAT), "Shikshana Kirana"
is a project to track every child’s enrolment, retention, and progress in school
through unique identity and name.
yy Odisha: Mother Tongue-based Multilingual Education Programme (MLE) aims
to improve tribal students’ literacy by using mother tongue instruction in early
Grades.
yy Kerala has initiated crowd-sourcing for setting up community-level device banks
for providing devices to all secondary level students at home along with data
packs to ensure continuous learning.
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Journal of the National Human Rights Commission, Vol. 22, 2023