As
soon as a bulb flickers in a distant house in Mauthri village, children
start moving towards the house. It indicates time for their evening
class. A small school in Mauthri village in Banki block of Barabanki
district imparts education digitally to the children.
Live classes, taught by skilled teachers in local schools, are
digitally recorded, made into DVDs and transferred to these under
privileged schools. Children are taught English, Hindi, Maths and
science using these pre-recorded DVDs.
A Philips television
set and a DVD player sit in a rusty table that plays the DVDs for them
a couple of time so that the students can grasp the lesson well. Their
teacher Kanta pauses the film off and on, to explain certain concepts
and make sure that the students are being able to understand the
subject.
This project of digitally transmitting classes to under privileged
is named Digital Study Hall (DSH) and was initiated by Dr Urvashi
Sahni, President of Study Hall Educational Foundation and Randy Wang,
former assistant professor of Princeton University. Wang is now working
full time on the DSH project.
The first DSH pilot has been
operating in India since 2005. Currently, there are three hubs in
Lucknow, Bangalore, and Pune. Till now they have about 500 DVD-quality
recordings of lessons staged by skilled teachers. The languages used in
the content include Hindi, Kannada, Marathi, Tamil, and English.
The whole project is being funded by various organisations and
individuals like Microsoft Research and Washington University.
"Microsft has shown special interset in our project and they have
always come forward with financial aid. If things go well, then we
might receive more grant from them," said Dr Sahni.
Presently, about 50 children, in different batches are studying in
the informal school in Mauthri village. The afternoon batch is meant
for girls between the age group of 15-18 years and the evening batch is
for the little ones. Most of the students studying in this school
appear as private candidate in the state board's exam.
The
audio-visual method assists them in understanding the subject better.
Kanta, their teacher is intermediate pass. She said, "The children have
shown a lot of difference. They are more serious about their studies
and wish to study further. We might soon have a teacher, who can teach
them further." Kanta gets Rs 1,500 per month for imparting education to
these students.
The students are equally excited about their new method of learning.
Sabina Khatoon, a students said, "Its interesting to learn this way.
Even after we've had out class the DVD keeps playing in my mind. I
don't forget the class easily."
Dr Sahni said, "The main purpose of this project is to improve
the quality of education in the rural as well as urban areas. And also
to allow resource starved area to make use of the better quality and
content of education available in good schools.
"However, work
does not end after providing DVDs to the rural schools, we have to make
sure that there is a mediator between the students and the television.
Teachers are trained by us, so that they can explain the concept to the
students and clarify their doubts."