Non-profits and Governments could drive Innovation in education by focusing on Inclusive Growth
By: Dv Avinash Raju
Tags: Online Education, Covid 19, Systems Thinking, Innovation, India

Online education in the time of the pandemic

Covid — 19 has posed a challenge to the traditional means of in person delivery and teaching and has lead to increase in adoption of online education. However, students from economically weaker sections of the society without access to smartphones and other gadgets were left out . Image Source: Internet

Covid-19 has disrupted the day to day life as we know it. Education happens to be one of the sectors that got deeply affected as the usual modes of classroom education in physical space are no longer feasible like before. With the children out of school, what followed was a spike in demand for online education. It catered mostly to the students from the upper and middle-class income families with the schools moving to online education mode or through ed-tech firms.

The problem of access by students of weaker sections of the community

Most of the students from the weaker economic sections were left out from the online mode of education. In some cases, no one in the family had a smartphone/tablet. In a few other cases, the only smartphone in the house was usually taken by one of the parents to their place of work. Students also reported that they could not afford the cost of a good internet connection on their mobile, even more so in the time when many of the people have lost jobs and have little to almost no savings.

These students usually go to low-cost private schools, government schools, and are part of various interventions of non-profits. Even as most of the low-cost private schools were left puzzled of how to respond to the crisis, different governments and non-profits have made attempts to cater to the educational needs of the students.

Innovations made by governments and non-profits

An elephant in the classroom — A government teacher in the Indian state of Kerala using augmented reality in online education. Image Source: Internet

Most of the students from the weaker economic sections were left out from the online mode of education. In some cases, no one in the family had a smartphone/tablet. In a few other cases, the only smartphone in the house was usually taken by one of the parents to their place of work. Students also reported that they could not afford the cost of a good internet connection on their mobile, even more so in the time when many of the people have lost jobs and have little to almost no savings.

These students usually go to low-cost private schools, government schools, and are part of various interventions of non-profits. Even as most of the low-cost private schools were left puzzled of how to respond to the crisis, different governments and non-profits have made attempts to cater to the educational needs of the students.

The need for driving innovation

From my friends I know who work in non-profits and large scale government projects, the reach and engagement are somewhere below 25%. Considering we are just a few months into the academic calendar, there is a lot of scope for improvement. But how shall the improvements be made?

Will decentralization and giving more autonomy to teachers be helpful to drive outcomes? Should educators be allowed to use different methodologies apart from what those used in the classrooms a year before? Depending on who is asking and answering the questions, the answers might vary.

Despite the methods used and choices made, educational outcomes would fall in the broad categories of 1) engagement, 2) learning outcomes, and) well being of students. For achieving those outcomes, innovations would be in the areas of a) delivery and, b) pedagogy.

Inclusive growth as a North Star to drive Innovation

Inclusive growth is better representative than ‘average growth’, which does not reflect the inequality — precisely the problem that non-profits and governments try to solve. Measures representing inclusive growth can be used to assess the efficiencies of the methods of delivery and pedagogy, and help see possible areas where changes could be made. This would help make visible the children who are not being catered to with a present set of methods and nudge for making changes.

Measuring inclusive growth

Inclusive growth could be measured by checked by using simple calculation of the average quartile growth in the classroom across all the 4 quartiles. A much more sophisticated formula such as the genie coefficient which is often used for measuring income inequality could also be used. There might even be other formulas representing Inclusive Growth that could be chosen depending on the sophistication one is comfortable with.

Role of the individual educators and the organizations towards the community

Although individual educators would be free to innovate on their own, a mandate at an organizational level to improve inclusive growth, and be honest about it would pave way for innovation. It has the potential to drive a deeper understanding of the students, the communities they belong to, and what education could look like for them. It’s an opportunity the educators and the organizations should not miss. More so, in this time of the pandemic, when the weaker sections of the community are the most affected and are also the ones to whom education is an important tool for emancipation and freedom from the circle of poverty.

About the author: D.V. Avinash is a Teach For India alumnus, and the founder and coordinator for Fellow Durbar which has now evolved into Durbar Project. He is passionate about complex problem solving and believes in enabling multiple individuals to drive innovation and solve system problems.