Kalike

August 14th, 2020

Ms. Soubhagya, a native of Arkera village studies grade 10 in Govt. high school, Hattikuni. She resided in the pre-metric girl’s hostel, Hattikuni which is run by the Backward Communities department, Government of Karnataka. Her parents are illiterate and work as agriculture labourers with poor economic conditions. As Soubhagya was good in studies, her parents chose to admit her in the Government. hostel where all costs are taken care off.

 

Even though Soubhagya was good in academics, she was low on self-confidence and was an introvert. She found Science and English subjects difficult. In school, she did not have any additional support from teachers other than the regular classes and also was not getting any peer learning support both in school and hostel. As per hostel rules, all students were expected to stay in the hostel except vacations. However, Soubhagya used to make every excuse possible to go back home on weekends.

When Kalike started its “Technology Enabled Education Program” in Hattikuni pre-metric girls’ hostel, she started attending the daily sessions conducted by Ms. Shruti, a remedial teacher appointed by Kalike. She found the sessions interesting since the sessions were different from her school ones. She found the audio-visual learning content very interesting. This was the first time she had access to tabs and head phones. She was fascinated by the sessions as she had freedom to access the content on her own and could pause, rewind for any clarity needed. She could clear her doubts with Ms. Shruti and also had access to a desktop loaded with offline learning tools on science, mathematics and social science.

 

She became well versed with handling desktop computer which many of her peers in school had never seen. She also attended the spoken English, crafts and life skills session conducted by Ms. Shruti, for the hostel residents. These additional sessions helped in building her self-confidence. A small library setup having various collections in Kannada, English and Hindi which she could refer at any time provided her more access to information.

 

Over a period of few weeks, Ms. Soubhagya found her hostel much more interesting and continued to remain in the hostel during weekends to learn new things.  The technology enabled education program by Kalike helped her to get better information, knowledge and skills than her school peers and she found herself more self-confident with raised self-esteem.