~ Approximately 200 vulnerable children from 10 schools across Chennai, Gurgaon, New Delhi, Kanpur and Agra benefitted and got opportunity to improve their competencies in English and Mathematics ~

As our country braces itself to navigate through the third wave of COVID, World Vision India (WV India), the country’s largest child-focused humanitarian organization, focuses on ensuring that the education of the vulnerable children do not suffer. As one of the way to facilitate this- WV India collaborated with Global Indian International School (GIIS)-Singapore and conducted Community Virtual Class Learning (CVCL) for approximately 200 students of grade 4 to 5 level aged between 8 to 13 years from 10 schools across Chennai, Gurgaon, New Delhi, Kanpur and Agra.

CVCL is a virtual platform where the vulnerable students from lesser-privileged communities, are taught practical concepts that will have a learning impact in their lives. GIIS students from the 11^th grade facilitated CVCL and tutored the students in English and Mathematics. English topics ranged from alphabets, nouns, tenses to poems, letter writing and even story telling. Mathematics topics ranged from simple addition, subtraction to profit & loss, area & perimeter, etc. As many as 2000 students from various school were analyzed during the baseline survey to select the most vulnerable who did not have age/grade appropriate learning outcomes. Then the best way to tutor and help them improve were outlined. Most sessions were in the children’s mother tongues to begin with until they were able to comprehend the study material in English.

“The Pilot of the CVCL project was undertaken in October to December 2020 and owing to its success we decided to scale it up to more schools in 2021. Many of the students from the vulnerable sections did not have access to the internet, digital training or amenities to try to improve their academic skills. We are thrilled to collaborate with an institution such as GIIS Singapore, who share our philosophy of results through sustained efforts rather than resorting to ad hoc measures. I would also like to take this opportunity to thank all the students from GIIS Singapore who took time off from their schedule and makes CVCL a great success. We are keen to further expand this program to more schools in India this year,” said, Mr. Sanjay Bhattacharya, Strategic Lead- Education, World Vision India.

“With the pandemic not going away, we definitely see the need for programs such as CVCL to provide opportunities for children from vulnerable sections, to equip themselves with skill sets which will hone their learning abilities. The students chosen for the program were those which needed help academically in their respective batches,” said Mr. Ashwin Gite, CAS Coordinator & Department Head, Humanities, Global Indian International School. “As per the baseline assessment, we received great results after CVCL, as about 70% of the students were able to read and comprehend English language, 35% of them were able to read newspapers and 70% also improved their competencies in simple arithmetic. This goes a long way to show how the right platforms and guidance can help these students improve their skills,” Mr Gite added.

Apart from improving their overall competencies in English and Mathematics, students also learned how to study through a virtual medium, which was a first for many. The exposure to the students from GIIS Singapore also acted as a platform for cross-fertilizations of ideas and an opportunity to engage with students from an International school and to pick up some of the best educational practices from them. On the other hand, the students from GIIS Singapore also got an opportunity to improve their preparatory and facilitation skills as well as have a cultural connect with India.

GIIS is a premier international school based in Singapore, whose mission is to nurture young minds into global leaders and innovators of tomorrow through a skills-based approach to education. The school emphasizes on entrepreneurship and character development as part of its holistic learning framework, which allows students to participate in programmes like CVCL.