Learning Begins at Home

How do we ensure that children do not drop out of school? How do we ensure that their learning levels do not get affected? What resources could we arrange for the children to continue with their learning? Shall we look at adopting digital solutions? Who in the community or the family could support children with their activities? How do we make learning enjoyable for children?

The COVID-19 pandemic paused the work of organizations delivering quality last-mile learning to children from underserved communities. To ensure that such children do not lose out on the progress made before the pandemic, such organizations have had to rethink their approaches. Organizations working in varied geographies with marginalized communities adapted to the challenges posed by COVID-19.

In this context, it is difficult to imagine geographies and communities more remote and marginalized than those comprising of the leftwing extremism affected areas of Chhattisgarh.

Facilitating Home-Based Learning in a Remote, Conflict-ridden Geography

Since 2015, Shiksharth, a not-for-profit organization has been working towards improving the quality of education of children from tribal communities in this region. For the past few decades, a vicious cycle of violence has forced children of the left-wing extremism conflict-affected areas of Chhattisgarh to remain trapped in intergenerational trauma, poverty and poor access to opportunities. The pandemic further exposed these children to additional vulnerabilities.

Neeraj Naidu, Child Engagement Lead at Shiksharth says, “At the beginning of the pandemic, there was faith reposed in digital education technology solutions. However, in the areas that lack required digital infrastructure – access to network, internet, devices and electricity, the adoption of such solutions seemed like a distant dream.” Initially, the state government launched a state-level educational virtual platform named ‘Padhai Tuhar Dwar’ (Education at Your Doorsteps). However, due to the abysmal digital infrastructure, this initiative saw poor participation from the children in this region.

The Shiksharth team developed offline learning kits comprising of worksheets. These kits focus on ensuring that children practice key literacy skills in a personalized and engaging manner without the help of a teacher. The approach was not to teach any new concepts to the children. Instead it focused on minimizing the widening learning gap created by school closure. These kits have content and resources developed by Shiksharth and have been shared by different organizations on the internet. The kits focus on supporting foundational literacy and numeracy skills of children.

These offline kits are grouped for students into three grade levels – level one catering to grades one to third, level two catering to grades fourth and fifth, and level three catering to grades sixth to eighth. Each level consists of 5–6 kits of about 50–60 pages each. These offline kits do not focus on addressing textbook-based syllabi, but on fundamental objectives of the school curriculum. These were complemented with multi-disciplinary contextual projects catering to development of relevant skills and foundational literacy and numeracy.

These projects are facilitated by community volunteers. The organization, to ensure sustainability of its initiatives, takes inspiration from Mahatma Gandhi’s philosophy of encouraging the community to take ownership of its institutions. In the wake of the pandemic, multiple restrictions were imposed on the entry of outsiders in villages. Communities were encouraged to take responsibility for their children’s learning process. Young volunteers from rural communities stepped up to coordinate with Shiksharth and ensure that children in their neighborhoods continue to do the activities from the offline kits. Some volunteers formerly performed odd jobs in the cities.

Neeraj adds, “Some of them were earning a better salary in the cities than the modest compensation we offered. They decided to volunteer in their communities. The youth believed that the children deserved better learning opportunities. Moreover, working for children of their community motivated them to continue.” It might be too early to assess the impact of the offline kits on the children’s learning. The team is optimistic that there will be an increased level of engagement by the students when they return to school.

Whereas offline kits provided the backbone of the home-based interventions of Shiksharth, other organizations in different contexts have innovated with hybrids models combining both offline and online components.

Minimizing Learning Loss with Hybrid Models

Simple Education Foundation (SEF), an educational non-profit that majorly works in Delhi and Uttarakhand, is one such organization. Founded in 2013, SEF is driven by the belief that every child deserves access to quality education, regardless of their social and economic background. With over 65% of children in India still going to government schools, the team works to design and implement holistic school transformation programs that aim to strengthen government schools.

Under the Simple School Project’s whole school transformation model, they are working with three schools under the South Delhi Municipal Corporation. To bring about sustainable school transformation, the organization engages with stakeholders who directly impact the life and learning of children – parents, teachers, and principals.

In March 2020, the pandemic started posing challenges to the project’s progress. Parents of the children enrolled in these schools were daily wage migrant laborers. With the imposition of lockdowns, their livelihoods were jeopardized. Many of them decided to return to their native villages. The families were struggling to make ends meet. Initially, SEF focused on ensuring that the families get the ration support offered by the government and extended well-being support as well.

Thirdly, the team realized that it was important to not solely rely on digital solutions and opted for a hybrid model.

Across the country, learning remotely using digital platforms was gaining traction. However, it was challenging to blindly adopt it. Prerna Kalra, Associate Director, Simple School at SEF shares, “The children belonging to low-income backgrounds faced additional challenges. Some of their families did not have smartphones, steady network coverage, or adequate internet recharge. A few families had migrated back to their homes in villages. It got difficult for us to contact the children. The team had to revisit its strategy.”

Firstly, the team recontextualized their curriculum to suit the digital medium. Technology now gave them the opportunity to share their responses in writing, drawing or using voice notes. Since many of the children were first-generation learners and in primary grades, SEF focused on making bilingual content that was easy for the children to comprehend. The activities and concepts that were shared on digital medium with parents focused on activities that centered on wellbeing. For instance, activities on gardening and those that helped them practice gratitude were given.

Prerna adds, “We ensured that the activities did not pressurize students to develop an unhealthy competitive spirit. We gave activities that provided opportunities to children to express themselves and share, engaging with their siblings and parents.”

Secondly, the team had to prioritize aiding all the stakeholders to embrace digital solutions. To familiarize teachers with digital platforms and their functionalities, SEF conducted training for teachers, and the teachers further reached out to parents. To bridge the digital infrastructure gap, SEF helped families get mobile tablets.

Thirdly, the team realized that it was important to not solely rely on digital solutions and opted for a hybrid model. After the lockdown eased, parents were encouraged to visit schools weekly or fortnightly to collect worksheets for their children. The SEF team and teachers helped parents with their children’s doubts.

Fourthly, SEF was aware that parents need to be nudged to remain committed to learning processes of their children. They were requested to help children with their activities and attend school management committee meetings conducted online or in person. Parents who showed exemplary interest were lauded on WhatsApp groups and in meetings.

Jyotirmaya from SEF shares, “Since many of the parents have barely finished primary or middle school, they were hesitant to confidently guide their children. Many a times, parents accompanying their children to school would have correct understanding of the activity, but still wished to confirm it with the teachers and our team. We always encouraged the parents to not hesitate in helping the children in their learning.”

The second wave of the pandemic wrecked havoc in the children’s lives as some of them lost their parents to COVID-19. Some of the parents working as daily wage earners yet again lost their livelihoods. Although the possibility of a third wave of the pandemic looms, SEF is committed to ensuring that the learning loss of children is minimized.

Organizations such as SEF have tried to innovate to ensure that the learning journeys of children they have been working with continues. But those educational non-profits who used to directly intervene in other learning spaces such as the playground or in libraries in schools and institutions, have had to rethink their strategies substantively.

A Time for Pausing and Consolidating

Adhvan, a non-profit that conducts regular library sessions in Child Care Institutions through its Library Program, is one such organization. These institutions house children till the age of 18 years, who have been declared as ‘Children in Need of Care and Protection.’ These children are either orphans, or have been victims of abuse; often they have been abandoned, or have experienced other kinds of trauma and exploitation. Children’s Homes are residential institutions responsible for fulfilling all their physical and emotional needs. The Adhvan team began the initiative with two children’s homes run by Maharashtra State Women’s Council, namely Asha Kiran and Asha Sadan Rescue Home in Mumbai.

Megha, Founder of Adhvan Foundation, discusses the condition of children in Asha Sadan, “Children in these homes are confined to the four walls of the institution. Their days are arranged with fixed schedules where they have no autonomy to make their decisions. For instance, if the children are scheduled to have a meal at a certain time, even if they get hungry before the time, they would not be served any meal. It would not be fair to blame the administration of these institutions, as they are managing with scarce resources and their staff is severely overburdened. But these children live within the confines of rigidly built structures.”

To create spaces that allow children to freely express themselves and develop agency, Adhvan facilitates library sessions with them. These sessions focus on fostering a love of reading, supporting literacy and language development, and building key life skills.

Yasmin who works as a facilitator of these sessions says, “In our sessions, we use interactive techniques to enhance problem-solving abilities and proficiency in foundational literacy and numeracy. If we discuss a story, we ask children to share what they think about the characters, their actions, and reflect on how they would have acted in similar circumstances.”

The pandemic did put a pause on the work of Adhvan. Guidelines of the Juvenile Justice (Care and Protection) Act, 2015, put the onus on the administration of children’s homes to ensure well-being, facilitate the development of identity and provide an inclusive and enabling environment. Consequently, to ensure the safety of the children, the homes did not allow any visitors. Asha Kiran closed its doors to the street children it served during the first lockdown and plans to reopens when schools reopen. When the lockdown restrictions were lifted after the first wave, Megha tried reasoning with the administration of Asha Sadan; she had to wait till October 2020 to resume library sessions with the institution’s children.

In the beginning of the pandemic, she had insisted that the children be allowed to issue books from the library and have some reading time during the day. The authorities, citing a shortage of staff to manage these activities, and the possibility of books getting misplaced or spoilt, refused to help. Megha adds, “We advocate for open libraries where children can browse and read any book they like, whenever they like. Despite providing the books for the Library and reassuring the institutions that we are willing to risk having books lost or damaged and that this is a small price to pay for the tremendous benefit of children having completely barrier free access to books, old patterns of functioning within institutions are hard to change. In our absence, they refuse to allow children access to the library.”

“We always ensured that the parents or elders who accompany the children were trained regularly too.”

The second wave again put an abrupt pause to the activities as well. Megha shares, “The children at Asha Sadan spend all their time locked up in the Home. The school and the Home are located on the same premises. It gets suffocating for them to not be able to freely interact with anyone. To ensure children continue on their learning journeys, Adhvan requested the administration of Asha Sadan to allow the children to write letters to the Adhvan team so that they could stay connected. Due to resource constraints, the institution’s staff had been unable to facilitate digital solutions or simpler library interventions through telephone calls. So we thought exchanging letters wouldn’t burden the institution and would enable us to continue to support the well-being of children. The administration agreed but with a caveat that each letter would be read by the administration before it gets posted.” Megha sensed that the children would not appreciate this breach of privacy, and did not go ahead with this initiative.

Adhvan is trying to creatively respond to these challenges. Apart from its ongoing work with Asha Kiran and Asha Sadan in Mumbai, it is exploring collaboration with another children’s home in Mumbai, and has already finalized talks with one in Odisha. The organization is ready to leverage digital media to reach out to more children.

Unlike Adhvan and similarly placed organizations, for other non-profits who traditionally have had to work with caregivers of children, the pandemic has opened up new spaces and opportunities for deepening their collaborations for home-based work with families. This of course has come with additional challenges as well.

Empowering Families to Facilitate Learning AWMH

is one such organization that has responded to the challenges posed by the COVID-19 pandemic creatively, by consolidating the work that it was already doing. AWMH works towards bringing people with intellectual and developmental disabilities into the mainstream of society, and enabling them to live independently with confidence, self-respect, and dignity. It follows a community-based rehabilitation approach and focuses on a multitude of activities such as creating awareness, prevention, early detection, early intervention, pre-school stimulation, vocational training and economic rehabilitation, social security, self-advocacy, and counseling and guidance.

Early intervention includes a treatment pathway that could remedy existing problems or prevent their occurrence. The practitioners at the centers are well-trained, qualified and experienced, comprising of Special Educators and Occupational Therapists. AWMH runs one of India’s biggest early intervention and research projects, with 5 clinics located all over Mumbai and its suburbs. These clinics provide services to infants and children in the age group of 0-6 years.

The practitioners develop an individualized therapy plan that addresses the requirements of each child. The plan focuses on physical, cognitive, communication, social or emotional development, and sensory and adaptive development. There are shortterm and long-term goals planned for each child. Responses to therapy are monitored periodically; and if required, the course of therapy is modified. Family members, especially parents, play a key role in the therapy of each child. Since the children are young, they preferably need an adult who looks after their therapy process. In some cases, there are elder siblings too who volunteer to help.

Dr Shital at AWMH explains, “Firstly, we explain to parents about the diagnosis, and the nature of support their child would require. Parents need to be made to understand the challenges their child is facing. During our remedial or preventive therapy, we ensure that parents are aware of the impact of short-term and long-term goals. Every step of the way, parents need to be informed and taken into confidence. We have seen that parents who understand the plan tend to commit whole-heartedly to the treatment of their children.”

In the wake of the pandemic, AWMH altered its approach. They adopted online channels of communication and audio/video calls to reach out to the children and their families. Shital adds, “We always ensured that the parents or elders who accompany the children were trained regularly too. When the pandemic hit, it did not get challenging for us to continue with the treatment for the children. For instance, if a child is facing problems of spasticity, to improve physical development the parents would be asked to help children practice grasping materials such as a bottle, a ball, or even a bowl. We were happy that during the pandemic, parents were able to step up and continue with the exercises.”

Putting children’s needs at the center of our concerns, having a collaborative approach toward their caregivers, being open yet agnostic to technology, and quick, creative organizational adaptability seem to be all part of this process.

During the pandemic, the professionals continued actively following up with families – the status of each child based on goals and achievements was assessed and updated. The online therapeutic and special education training for each child was charted out by the team at AWMH. Parents were explained how to carry out activities through online medium. To encourage the participation of families, regular video conferencing is conducted; when required, one-to-one counseling support for parents is provided. Therapeutic sessions are held through videos that are closely monitored, and some are recorded for peer review.

Videos developed by National Institute for the Empowerment of Persons with Intellectual Disabilities on how to conduct home-based therapy were shared with parents. Tutorials by the Indian Council for Medical Research (ICMR) and the World Health Organization (WHO) were made mandatory for the staff in charge of extending digital support. The promising progress made by embracing digital solutions encouraged the AWMH team to reach out to children in remote villages of Wardha.

In Conclusion

As the experiences of the four organizations we have discussed here shows, there is no simple formula for facilitating robust homebased learning opportunities for children in the context of the COVID-19 pandemic. Putting children’s needs at the center of our concerns, having a collaborative approach toward their caregivers, being open yet agnostic to technology, and quick, creative organizational adaptability seem to be all part of this process.

Home can exist in varied forms – for some, it could be their neighborhood in the village, for others it could be a rescue home. But its role in maintaining the wellbeing and development of a child remains insurmountable. In the wake of the pandemic, expectations from care-givers in home-based learning got charted out.

With schools reopening, we have to reimagine their role. In the future, for the holistic development of children, it would be important to ensure the involvement of their care-givers in their learning processes. A system that acknowledges the role of care-givers and capacitates them to support children’s learning should be encouraged. After all, the journey of learning of each child begins at home.