In response to a rising need for low contact education, Foundational Learning Over WhatsApp (FLOW) aims to deliver continued education on foundational learning skills to children of grades 1, 2 and 3 in Tamil Nadu, while addressing the barriers to accessing technology in low income households of India. By leveraging simple and cost-efficient technology, the programme is designed to work with infrequent internet connectivity, in local languages, and for those unfamiliar with the technology used.

Madhi Foundation is collaborating with Equitas Gurukul to launch this programme across their schools situated in 8 districts and we currently provide daily worksheets and videos to over 1800 children with the support of over 100 teachers.

SEED hopes to bridge a critical skill gap in delivering educational content in the age of virtual classrooms and the context of education in a post-COVID world. Through SEED, Madhi will co-create with the state, capacity development content around digital project management, team management, teaching online, conducting classroom observations, and using Google Suite and MS Office. This will be delivered through virtual webinars and will be supplemented by a proven peer learning support model developed by Madhi. SEED emphasises experiential learning, offering participants the opportunity to submit their work and receive feedback. Each participant also receives a certificate recognising their effort towards honing their competencies.

Over 300 State and District level officials have already signed up for this 10-part virtual programme.

In light of the ongoing school closures and lockdown, Madhi Foundation, in partnership with the Government of Tamil Nadu is implementing this new low-cost tech-enabled programme to deliver daily learning content to children with little or no access to internal and technology. Happy Learners ensure home learning in collaboration with teachers using a combination of IVRS based phone calls and printed books and worksheets, thus ensuring equitable reach. A digital tracker has been designed for the teachers to monitor the progress of their children on a weekly basis. With the support of teachers, children have the opportunity to learn at their own pace, clear doubts and be assessed regularly from their homes.

The project has been launched across Chennai and Tiruvannamalai districts, where over 9500 children have been provided with Happy Learners’ Books, and over 450 teachers have been onboarded onto the programme.

Veedum Vizhippum will bring together the community of parents and caregivers in Tamil Nadu to build awareness around the criticality of foundational learning, strengthening their agency by equipping them with knowledge, skills and mindsets to advocate for their children’s right to an equitable quality of foundational learning.

The project will focus on building awareness of foundational learning goals among caregivers, and ensuring parental agency through their participation in both learning at home and events and gathering at the community level. Veedum Vizhippum will also engage in advocacy through community ambassadors who will help parents gain clarity on what to demand from whom and how.

While Madhi works with the government to implement large-scale interventions, there are many ideas that need to be validated in a controlled sandbox environment before being set up for scale. With the aim of developing such laboratory schools, we will work with 5 government schools over the course of a year, and evaluate the proof of excellence of Madhi’s theory of change. The model schools will serve as the ideal learning environment for pedagogical and administrative initiatives, the outcomes of which will be relevant for typical under-resourced government schools in Tamil Nadu, and elsewhere in India. The Sandbox Schools pilot programme will feed valuable research and knowledge back into the larger ecosystem with the support of our Centre for Research and Innovation on Foundational Learning (CRIFL) team.