Rocket Learning

Solution Pitch

The Problem

Global research has established the importance of Early Childhood Education (ECE). However, over 35 million low-income children in India can't access quality ECE. Public schooling in India and at the pre-K level is limited to daycare centers that focus on nutrition and healthcare rather than cognitive stimulation. Without intervention, over 40 million young children in India will graduate from second grade without knowing a single letter or number. Globally, over 250 million children, or 43 percent, younger than five years in low- and middle-income countries are at risk of not reaching their developmental potential.

The Solution

Rocket Learning leverages technology, media, and social incentives to build early childhood and foundational learning at scale by connecting the government system and parents. For each school, there are groups with teachers and low-income parents who have a Rocket Learning “bot,” where daily contextualized, byte-sized academic content and activities in the local language are shared with parents to do with their children. Crucially, this content is designed with low-literacy and time-constrained parents’ needs in mind, as activities take less than 20 minutes and involve common household materials, such as dough instead of clay or turmeric mixed with water instead of paint. Personalized nudges help encourage parents to respond in their group, creating peer accountability. Real-time data and technology helps to build continuous motivation through virtual report cards based on how often parents participate, social media challenges, and inspiration from community and teacher influencers.

Rocket Learning’s groups have demonstrated learning gains and is inherently cost-effective and scalable, with variable costs at $0.10 per child per year. Globally, it can transform lives by catalyzing high-quality, inclusive early learning for millions of young children.

Stats 

• Rocket Learning helps connect 30,000 teachers to over 300,000 parents daily.

Market Opportunity

India has over 1.4 million government-run daycare centres, or Anganwadis, and 70 percent of low-income children between 3 to 6 years old are enrolled in one of these centres. These daycare centres are given the responsibility of providing adequate early childhood education and cognitive stimulation to attending children; however, children are not currently achieving school readiness in these centres. 

Furthermore, India is home to the largest population of illiterate women in the world, counting over 200 million. According to the World Bank, if every girl in the world finished 12 years of quality education, lifetime earnings for women could increase by $15 to $30 trillion. 

Organization Highlights

• Partnered with the Ministry of Women and Child Development, a branch of the government of India, to help build their first library of online content and create educational training for over 1 million daycare center workers.

Partnership Goals

Rocket Learning seeks:

• Strategic connections to funders, experts, and advisors interested in supporting and scaling Rocket Learning’s work, particularly those with a special interest in emerging markets, education, and technology. 

• Advice from technical experts, particularly around building out AI/ML capabilities, big data, and data privacy. 

• Partnerships with behavior change and communication experts, especially those with experience in low-income populations and emerging markets.