School closed due to floods but learning can continue

by Priya Jadhav 

Edtech company Vidyakul, partially funded by philanthropist Savji Dholakiya, comes to the rescue of students from Himachal, New Delhi and other flood-affected areas. 

Free lectures, e-books, MCQ-based tests for CBSE, state board students of Class 9-12 on Vidyakul's website, app and Youtube channel 

New Delhi, July 14 : For a week now, horrifying images of floods ravaging the hilly state of Himachal Pradesh have dominated our screens. Relief and rescue efforts are ongoing to protect life and loss of property from the wrath of nature. And if one state wasn't enough, floods now threaten New Delhi, the national capital and surrounding areas where roads remain submerged in water and many areas have become inaccessible.

For state governments, protecting lives and businesses (and rightly so) is the topmost priority. But what has worried education experts is the silent and irreversible academic loss which lakhs of students from the flood-affected areas are suffering and will continue to suffer till the situation normalises.

As schools remain shut in flood-affected areas, teachers are inaccessible and in many cases, books may also have been swept away or damaged in the water, students are now staring at a long period of academic loss.

However, one edtech company, Vidyakul, which is partially funded by philanthropist and business tycoon Savji Dholakiya, has offered free coaching to students from Class 9 to 12, enrolled in state board and CBSE board schools. 

An edtech company that offers low-cost after-school coaching to students in their mother tongue as well as Hinglish (English interspersed with Hindi), Vidyakul offers pre-recorded lectures on basic concepts to Class 9-12 students in several subjects on its website. 

Chapter-wise pre-recorded lectures are free of cost to access. Students can download the mobile app on their device and select their state and board, class in which they study, subject and chapter or topic to study.

Not just lectures, but e-books, handwritten notes and daily MCQ (multiple-choice questions) tests have also been made available free of cost to students, which can help track the learning outcome of students. Besides this, the company's Youtube Channel, https://www.youtube.com/hashtag/vidyakul, is offering free lectures as well.

Vidyakul hopes that in these trying times when the situation is so dire, the company can at least take care that no academic loss is faced by students.

For students, the last three years have been a tumultuous time. COVID-forced closure of students has led to severe academic loss among students. While there have been several studies on this subject, one of the reports by the World Bank (https://blogs.worldbank.org/developmenttalk/covid-19-school-closures-fueled-big-learning-losses-especially-disadvantaged) said that almost 1.6 billion students across the world were affected by school closure because of the COVID-19 pandemic. Even short disruptions in a child’s schooling have significant negative effects on their learning and can be long-lasting. These losses may translate to greater long-term impacts, with the burden falling heaviest on the disadvantaged.