‘Digital Shalas’ to come up in UP district

Lucknow, March 28 (SocialNews.XYZ) Children in the government schools in Barabanki district will now attend 'Digital Shalas' where they will get the digital learning opportunities.

Acuity Knowledge Partners (Acuity), a leading provider of high-value research, analytics and business intelligence services to the financial services sector, and Muskaan Dreams have implemented Digital Shala, a joint initiative to make available digital learning opportunities to children in the government schools in Barabanki in Uttar Pradesh.

This initiative will provide teachers with the training, tools and support required for the effective use of technology to teach students across the district.

The programme aims to improve students' learning experience by building teachers' digital skills so that they can provide each child with an opportunity to prepare for a rapidly evolving digital future.

Avadhesh Dixit, chief human resources officer and head of Acuity's CSR initiatives, told reporters, "Social empowerment and inclusive development are core elements of Acuity's CSR philosophy. Through Digital Shala, we aim to help bridge the digital divide in the government schools with an easy solution for teachers."

According to him, a WhatsApp-based interactive chatbot will connect with teachers and provide need-based digital skills and training modules on the effective use of technology. There is also a plan to provide smart TVs, grade-wise content and on-call/field support to teachers.

The programme will start in the Barabanki district as a pilot project and will be scaled to cover a number of districts in Uttar Pradesh in the coming years in an effort to integrate ICT into the education system, in line with the National Education Policy 2021.

The long-term goal of this initiative is to empower teachers across India with digital skills, enabling them to develop the digital skills of the children they teach.

Abhishek Dubey, founder of Muskaan Dreams, explained why Digital Shaala is different from other programmes and said, "Amid the pandemic, there was a blended approach to achieve a meaningful and sustainable impact. Keeping this in mind, we came up with this programme where teachers will be provided with all the necessary resources in the classroom and we will also train them concurrently through field visits every week."

The Digital Shala training modules include sessions on Zoom, YouTube, MS Office, Google and the Internet, and other helpful, short and specially curated video clips.

Source: IANS