India CSR News Network
KOLKATA: Sudipta Mandal, a class V student from Jnyanodamoyee High School shares her experience, “The audio -video presentation has been a first time experience for me. The subject becomes so easy to follow when presented on a large screen. Since the inception of English Lab, I have improved my vocabulary and grammatical sense. It has also helped me a lot in using a computer device”. Sudipta has been attending mjunction’s flagship School Integration Program (SIP) and English Lab for the past few months.
District schools have been reaping the benefits of mjunction’s CSR activities. With an aim to impart digital literacy to the underprivileged sections of the society, mjunction launched their flagship School Integration Program (SIP) back in 2015. The program has been specifically designed for implementation at the grassroot level, targeting those areas where resource and infrastructure is scarce.
In today’s world the foundation of an individual lies in her ability to communicate. As India moves towards a digital age, the knowledge of computer application has become an essential requirement for getting employed. However more than others, the students who miss out on communication and basic computer skills are from the less privileged sections of our society. Poverty, lack of infrastructure, poor teaching skills of primary teachers are some of the reasons for this.
The government has envisioned skill development and employment of 40 crore people by 2022. The employment of skilled labour force will make India a ‘human resource capital’. To execute this proposed idea, Skill India campaign was launched in July, 2015.
mjunction services limited, a b2b e-Commerce company has been providing educational opportunities to the underprivileged sections of society. The CSR activities are mainly done via SIP (School Integration Program) and English Lab with the help of ejunction, a trust promoted by mjunction.
mjunction CEO Vinaya Varma shared, “We have a comprehensive CSR policy which focus on the betterment of the marginalized society. We are providing digital literacy at the grassroot level to achieve outstanding results in the future. Our main goal is to provide quality education through digital means and formulate a process where the child is learning the subject as well as getting exposed to technology.”
Rameshwarpur High School, Jnyanodamoyee High School and Jhowkhali Haat High School in the Kakdwip area had computer facilities that were non-functional. Through SIP these facilities were renewed and infrastructure support like computer and projection devices were made available. A total number of 5000 students have been trained in computer science since the inception of school integration program (SIP).
The SIP program subsequently revealed that students trained under the vernacular medium are weak in English language. To solve this problem, mjunction came up with an English program for SIP called ‘English Lab’. English lab has been mostly implemented in government sponsored schools. After an extensive study mjunction realized that the improper teaching of English was primarily because the teaching staff lacked sound knowledge of the English language which in turn resulted in loss of interest for students.
Alokesh Chawla, Principal of Jhowkhali Haat High School said, “SIP introduced the students to computer learning in a structured manner. We have added computer studies in the regular curriculum with both theory and practical classes. The English Lab program has reduced the fear of English among the students. We are witnessing improvement in pronunciation of English words. The audio-video presentation has introduced the concept of joyful learning for the first time in our school”.
Through EnglishLab, text books of class V, VI & VII of WBBSE (West Bengal Board of Secondary Education) got digitized. The entire text book is now ready with audio visual representation and proper grammatical support with a special focus on worksheets. This has been implemented in schools in the Kakdwip area such as Rameshwarpur High School, Jnyanodamoyee High School and Jhowkhali Haat High School.
Students of classes V, VI and VII attend the English lab classes 3 times a week along with their assigned subject teacher. An ejunction trainer helps the teacher to conduct the class through the digital medium. More than 600 students are getting benefited from this. Another interesting aspect of this program is that the teachers are also getting benefited with this ready knowledge bank.
