Overcoming COVID-19 Educational Crisis

For more than 14 months, 1.5 million schools have remained closed in India affecting 290 million children. Many of these students face the threat of dropping out and fall victims to early marriages and child labor. A mere 8.5% students can access online education as per UNICEF report. The threat of adverse effects is very high among the rural poor who are also from disadvantaged communities, victims of caste based racism in India.

Our hybrid learning solutions is based on UNESCO's COVID-19 Response Toolkit; integrating digital solutions and community mobilization. Students access multi-directional participatory learning through SAAS solutions on shared or pooled devices like mobile phones or TV. Our solutions work on low-tech devices and low bandwidth.

Teacher fellows at the village level motivate parents and network with local bodies. We aim to retain rural poor in education and prevent threat of child labor and early marriages.

According to UNICEF 1.6 billion learners have been affected worldwide due to disruption in education due to COVID-19, of which 290 million are in India. Annual Status of Education Report 2020 (ASER) has found that 30% of the learners cannot access any form of remote learning. Bulk of these are villages and from low-income families.
There has been close to 90% key skills lost among students even with current
solutions that are impersonal, according to field study by Azim Premji University.
Drop-out rates have already doubled too. Most of them are first
generation learners and have no one to guide them nor do they have any
models of educational achievements.
The vulnerable are likely to join child labor and girls are likely to pushed to early marriages, wiping out years of gains through education. This lost generation of children would accelerate the cycle of intergenerational poverty.
In this context, Ignis intends to launch hybrid learning solutions that
integrate remote learning with community level mobilization. We intend to scale it by offering low-cost educational solutions to low-cost private schools, helping them to adapt to post COVID educational scenario.

Ignis has been working with under-served communities at two fronts, a) low-cost private schools that cater to nearly 130 million learners in India and b) government run schools. Close to 80% of our students come from families that earn less than $6 a day.

Before COVID we worked through a B2B low-cost model with low-cost schools providing capacity building programs with intense support to ensure skills based learning. With government schools, we raised grants or collaborated with non-profits to provide learning support.

Facing the COVID disruption, we have launched hybrid models integrating remote learning through ZOOM and Google Classroom, and mobilizing students through local teachers who directly pool students and pool devices to access learning. Before COVID disruption, Ignis promoted Life Skills and English and post-COVID disruption we have been supporting all subjects including STEM.

Our programs ensure access to learning to most vulnerable. This has been preventing students from dropping out and also retaining their learning without regression. To a lot of these students that is the only access to learning that they have had in the last one year.

We are currently developing a learning app and an Learning Management System to streamline the process.

Ignis has been working with low-income communities. 2 lean data studies by ACUMEN (60 Decibels) showed that 80% of the students we serve come from families that earn less than $5 a day. We have so far reached 294,000 students in the last 5 years. Since COVID-19 disruption, we have reached 3600 students through our hybrid learning solutions.

Annual State of Education Report (ASER) has found that 38% of parents do not have a smart device at all and 11.8% have not received any kind of educational support since the COVID induced disruption. Number of kids failing to enroll has gone up from 1.8% in 2018 to 5.3% in 2020. Dropout rates have doubled too.

All this is leading to increase in child labor and child marriages as the studies by Action Aid India suggests.

We have been in touch with our clients, 200 low-cost private schools as well as 3 remote villages to understand the extent of distress that is around. Many of them rolled out support through mobile applications like WhatsApp etc, but have found that 1/3rd of the students are not reachable.

We are facing multi-dimensional challenges,

1. Lack of access to learning opportunities, due to lack of devices or poor network.

2. Lack of educational awareness as most of the students are first generational learners and lack parental support or any form of institutional support.

3. Inability of schools and teachers to equip themselves with skills to use digital technology as well as devices.

4. Inability to connect learning to life, as there is an overwhelming belief that learning by rote is the only form of learning.

Ignis has been reaching out to students since September and continued to work in life skills and English skills. Since December 2020, we have been working to incorporate STEM as well. Our research team designs culturally relevant learning ideas in life skills, STEM and English. We enroll teachers and volunteers in schools and villages who in turn mobilize students to join the learning process. We have been curating free to use resources and also building activities that students can participate and learn from. We have been interacting with students though live sessions on ZOOM or Google Meet and the teachers or teacher fellows follow-up and support students in applying their learning in real life activities that are easy to relate to.

We have been running training program for teachers and school managers on digital skills, and devices. That is an investment in sustainability as hybrid learning models are the future.

The teachers and teacher fellows (volunteers/ paid interns) have also been facilitating device sharing as lack of devices is a major hindrance that they are facing.

The teachers and teacher fellows also motivate parents to let their children to continue learning. Often parents need reassurance on the benefits of education. The teachers and teacher fellows also become models of the benefits of education, as they continue to learn as well.

This would facilitate learning, that is relevant to their local context
and assist teachers and low-cost schools to facilitate meaningful
learning along with life skills.

Ignis has also been partnering with non-profits like United Way of Hyderabad, Concern India and Rainbow homes to support students.

We are looking to scale our program and are in the process of designing a mobile app that works on low-end smartphones, and weaker mobile networks. We are also developing a Learning Management System to integrate all the stakeholders. LMS will also provide lesson plans for teachers / teacher fellows so that we scale efficiently with minimal training support for them.

We intend to provide smart television set ups that are networked so that students who are deprived of devices can learn at a community center. These centers will be managed by teacher fellows or low-cost schools. These community learning centers would train students in smaller groups ensuring personal safety against COVID.

In addition, we would also like to add essential nutrition to our interventions in government schools, as the midday meals provided by these schools have stopped.

80% of the students we  work with come from families that earn less than $6 a day. They are economically, socially and culturally marginalized in the Indian context. They constitute what could become post-COVID lost generation.

We are designing affordable and accessible technology, through easy to access mobile applications as well as a learning management system integrating all stakeholders. The programs are community driven, with teacher fellows working with communities.

We intend to share our resources with other non-profits and state governments as well as organizations from other countries. We have a business model catering to low-cost private schools.

We are pivoting to a technology integrated learning model to serve the community that we have been working with. We have worked with about 294,000 students in about 300 school promoting life skills and English for the last 5 years. Now we are also offering STEM as there is a clear impact opportunity caused by COVID crisis.

COVID has also forced the community to accept digital solutions for learning and we are developing mobile applications and learning management systems to integrate the communities. Since September 2020, we have reached about 3600 students through resources like YouTube, ZOOM and Google Classroom.

In a sense we are back to the drawing board redrafting a solution that is very essential to reshape education to be relevant for the future. We integrate communities and schools to be relevant to the target group.

It is in this context that we consider ourselves at the growth stage.

COVID-19's disruption of education has wiped out decades of progress the most vulnerablehad made in terms of education. The 1.3rd of the students who cannot access any learning options are mostly the rural poor and girls.

The proposed solution is a hybrid model, where Ignis mobilizes learners in villages through community based intervention and provides culturally relevant and participatory learning models to villages through technology. The teacher recruited from the community motivates and mobilizes learners to pool their own resources, as well as guide them through regular contact programs in small groups. The students learn by participating in learning activities and experiments conducted using their limited resources. The learning management system would connect teachers and students with experts who create these activities and guide them systematically at a very affordable cost.

None of the current market solutions, including not-for profit have a community based approach. We help students access technology and motivate parents about the importance of learning. Currently there are  expensive individual learning apps and Learning Management Systems which do not have culturally relevant learning content or guidance to teachers.

The hybrid learning models help low-cost schools as well as communities. The programs are decentralized and safe during COVID-19 and would prevent drop-outs and regression in skills.  Girls are the most vulnerable, who are likely to be pushed to domestic chores and early marriages.

We aim to share the technology and ideas with non-profits and local governments in order to scale rapidly.

Ignis reached 264,000 students in the last 6 years. In the academic year 2019-20, we reached 54,000 students in 194 schools across 5 states of India.

In 2020-21 (Since COVID-19 outbreak) we reached 3600 students through hybrid model, and trained 400 teachers on using digital tools.

We aim to reach 60,000 students, 21,000 in govt schools through partnerships and 39,000 in low-cost private schools.

We are targeting 1.8 million students in the next 5 years.

Ignis uses lean data studies and longitudinal surveys to measure both short-term and long-term socio-economic impacts of our engagements. These impact studies may be conducted in-house or by independent organization. We are currently discussing with school managers and parents about their current health as well as their plans to pivot in view of COVID-19 disruptions.

Short term impacts: For short-term impact among the beneficiaries, we focus on indicators like, over-all academic performance, gender distribution in school enrollments and school enrollment rates. We also monitor the improvement in academic performance in class 10 school leaving exams.

We measure learning outcomes in terms of academic performance 3 times
are year. Parent surveys are conducted at the end of every academic
year.

Long-term impacts: Longitudinal studies help us gauge the socio-economic impact of our engagements in terms of gender parity in schools, rate of enrollment in higher education, rate of employment, quality of colleges that the students enroll, and improvement in age at marriage of girls. These are compared with state and national averages.

We conducted lean data studies among parents and students in 2017 and 2018. This was conducted by 60_Decibels, and funded by Acumen. We are currently preparing for a survey among teachers, and this supported by Yunus Social Business.

Ignis regularly interact with our clients and stakeholders on the benefits and scope of improvement of our services.

We are a team of 17 people. All of us are full-time, of which 60% are women. It is a culturally diverse team by design to address varied cultural landscape that we work in.

Before COVID-19 lockdown in India Ignis had 42 full-time employees and 12 part-time employees

Ignis currently working in 4 states of India directly, and have offices in 9 cities.

Ignis is led by Rennis Joseph, who has 18 years of experience in education, working across sectors, from kindergarten to higher education at the tertiary level. Our senior executives Bhargav Y., Manal Doshi, Rani Joseph, and Sonia Pippin have been training people across this spectrum. Sonia, who heads HR also brings in corporate expertise after her stint in Microsoft.

At the core of Ignis, is a research team that has been designing programs for different age groups and cultures. We have worked in diverse cultural landscapes by partnering with non-profits like Naandi Foundation and Deshpande Foundation. We have also designed unique programs for adolescent girls, for the Naandi Foundation. We have adapted our programs to suit urban, rural and tribal communities incorporating their cultural dimensions.

All our programs incorporate life skills as laid out by UNICEF and WHO.

Ignis has also been supporting organizations to design and implement hybrid models. We designed the hybrid model including digital integration for the state of Andhra Pradesh through our partnership with APSSDC.

Ignis works with financially and culturally under-served communities. Our recruitment process is designed to hire people who are aligned to our mission. This includes gender sensitivity and understanding of caste and cultural marginalization.

The leadership team is a balanced mix of genders and we take pain to have a diverse mix in terms of cultural background.The current leadership team of 6 has people from 4 states and has a balance of religious, caste and cultural contexts.

The leadership team has been trained by DASRA and Amani Institute, both organizations which actively promotes diversity and inclusion.

On the field we recruit trainers and sales team from the target communities and train them year-round. These team mates undergo about 40 days of training which also emphasizes gender justice and social justice.

The proposed project is community based and will be implemented in partnership with community based teachers.

Our diversity and cultural sensitivity is manifest in our lesson plans and learning materials. The first step of any design is to map the local life style and cultures. We incorporate them into our design to be close to the lives of the students.

We are currently pivoting to have technology enabled hybrid models to support low-income communities. Our mobile apps and learning management systems are being developed by a third party. Going forward we would be building an in-house team. I am looking forward to seek support from Solve to guide us in setting up our digital solutions, in terms of technology partnerships and mentoring.

Being a social business, we find it difficult to raise funds in India. We hope to connect with impact investors to scale our work as a social business.

Another aspect of being a Solver is the access to peer network from diverse cultural contexts. I have always actively sought out peer networks as we have get to learn from their experiences.

We are also looking to explore partnerships in terms of services and new geographies. Ignis solutions are relevant for under-developed and developing nations in Asia, Africa and South America. Our models can help even developed countries redesign their educational models. That would help us access larger markets and scale faster.

We are also trying to measure the long term impact in terms of learner outcomes like, improvement in learning,  improvement in life skills, improvement in enrollment in higher education, employment opportunities etc. We look forward to collaborating with the Solve in finding effective ways to measure these and the larger impact on community.

 

Human Capital: We are looking to have affordable solutions to help us scale rapidly. We are in the process of putting together a board that can guide us in this process.

Business Model: Rapid growth requires a robust business model with market fit. We would like to have support in identifying our market fit in terms of the target customers through in depth surveys and case studies.

Public Relations: Ignis also requires branding support for rapid scaling, in order to reach customers and investors.

Monitoring and Evaluation: We are looking to build impact assessment models in terms of life skills, improvement in learning, enrollment in higher education, improvement in gender parity and employment.

Product/Service Distributions: We are trying to open our B2C model and this would require us to reach out clients digitally. We are looking for support in this.

Technology: We are looking for experienced mentors to guide our digital products and services. We are also looking to partner with people with similar products.

Organizations: We are looking to partner with educational service providers who would like to share technology. We are also keen to partner with organizations that would like to scale the hybrid model that we are developing. We also look forward to partner with governments looking for similar models, as we have experience in working in rather large states of India.

MIT Faculty: It would be great to have mentors who can guide in our product design, technology solutions, market fit and scaling.

Solve teams: We would be seeking partnerships with technology companies and educational organizations from across the world.

Ignis has always worked with the most marginalized communities. The CEO of Ignis, Rennis started his career working on a project by UNHCR supporting Afghan and Burmese refugees in New Delhi.

Our experience in supporting livelihood initiatives through English and Life Skills to students, and young adults are relevant.

We would like to provide educational support through the hybrid model to children who are refugees, in terms of life skills, English and STEM.

The proposed solution for Solve Ed is a hybrid model of learning for the most under-served communities. Our programs covers STEM along with English and life skills.

We have been implementing hybrid models with community participation and we are looking to scale our work either directly or through partnerships.

Ignis developed Life Skills 4 Girls, a special program aimed at supporting adolescent girls from urban and rural poor. We have already supported Naandi Foundation in developing and implementing this. We are currently looking to scale our work on our own. The biggest challenge is to have parents invest in their girl children given the gender biases they have. This program can be implemented only with grant support.

Our program incorporates life skills, English skills and STEM. We design a series of participatory activities that are built in the context of the students. We have developed a 11 point program based on a national level survey through in depth interviews with 900 girls. The program addresses gender discrimination, educational awareness, financial awareness, career orientation, reproductive and general health, food and nutrition, citizenship rights and domestic violence. An intensely participatory program helps girls to delve deep into their personal context and evolve solutions. This is usually implemented as part of regular classes in schools, or as camps and after school support. Support for STEM and English would also help them learn better.

This is a community based program and connects mothers and elder women of the community to make the program sustainable and actionable.

Our program not only helps girls navigate gender biases and discrimination, but also find their way around education and employment apart from addressing health and stigma associated with reproductive health. We aim to improve their educational prospects and employment prospects through continued support till they are 22. Being able to make informed decisions, they would be able to negotiate challenges of lack of information and lack of access to legal remedies.

No.

GSR prize would help us develop a hybrid model of education that would promote STEM in low-cost private schools and govt run schools. That would help us reach extremely poor and vulnerable section of the society. 80% of our students come from families that earn less than $5 a day.

A purposeful STEM education program would instill skills in students, who are slaves to learning by rote. That would improve their overall well-being, starting with health, freeing them from superstitions, application of science and technology based solutions to improve their work and life.