JODHPUR, India — The district administration in Jodhpur, a city in the northwest Indian state of Rajasthan, and an international non-governmental organization have jointly undertaken a unique initiative to educate children in the rural areas by means of camel cart libraries.
Jodhpur School Education Department Joint Director Prem Chand Sankhla said this reading campaign with the theme of ‘India gets reading at home’ is an initiative from the district administration and NGO’ Room to Read‘ to provide education to children during the ongoing Covid-19 pandemic.
“The pandemic has affected the studies of the children,” Sankhla said.
“A few of them have completely detached from learning. To reconnect these children, we have organized mobile libraries for the children up to the eighth standard. There are villages where there is no mode of transport, and they do not even have proper roads.”
“To make education accessible to the children of such places, we have started mobile libraries on camel carts. This library has many pictorial books to attract kids and make learning more interesting,” he said.
Sankhla informed that they also try to aware parents regarding children’s education and tell them to be more vigilant towards their child’s learning process.
People have tweeted about the initiative and called it an ‘innovative solution.’
“Meet Rajasthan’s unique camel cart-bound mobile library for village kids. Decorated with balloons & loaded with over 1500 books, the cart is probably the first,” a tweet read.
“What an innovative solution people of this village in Jodhpur have found to compensate for the absence of school.”
The kids also expressed their happiness in getting an opportunity to access different books during the pandemic.
“I am very fond of reading books. We had access to a library in our school. But the schools are closed because of the pandemic now. I am very happy that I can still read all kinds of books because of this mobile library,” said Anita, a student.
The Covid-19 pandemic has affected a large number of students across states, classes, caste, gender, and region.
The shutting down of schools and the decision of shifting traditional classrooms to digital platforms is not only increasing learning inequality among children but also pushing a large number of children out of school due to the digital divide.
As per ‘An analysis of Covid-19 impacts on the Indian education system’, the availability of electricity was a significant challenge to taking advantage of education online.
“Both teachers and students faced many hurdles during online education,” the study states.
“At home, a lack of basic facilities, external distraction, and family interruption during teaching were major issues noticed.”
“Though the outbreak of Covid-19 created many negative impacts on education, educational institutions of India accepted the challenges and tried their best to provide seamless support services to the students during the pandemic.”
Indian education system got the opportunity for transformation from a traditional system to a new era during the pandemic.
Apart from online classes, mobile educational apps saw a spike in usage, reveals data by Statista.
“As per the results of a survey conducted during the first week of a nation-wide lockdown due to the Covid-19, educational mobile apps saw a spike,” read the data.
“Over 76 percent of respondents stated that they had increased their use of the educational app.”
(With inputs from ANI)
Edited by Amrita Das and Pallavi Mehra
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