Mumbai-based Stem Leaning is empowering school teachers with innovative tools to teach science and mathematics. The company is devising plug and play models to enhance the teaching experience and facilitate learning among the students.
STEM Learning’s Mini Science Centre (MSC) is one such table-top model to teach complex science and mathematics concepts – a departure from the conventional text or pictorial methods.
“STEM installs Mini Science Centres and designs models to make learning more practical, fun-loving, and easy to understand for students. It gives them proactive experience with the actual scientific models that they learn about from their textbooks,” company’s Managing Director, Ashutosh Pandit told India CSR.
The company works with corporate groups to develop sustainable and effective CSR (Corporate Social Responsibility) initiatives in education, Pandit said. The company was started to promote learning in the field of science, technology, engineering and mathematics at the school level.
As of now, the company has tied up with over 100 companies including top banks like the HDFC Bank Ltd, ICICI Ltd and HSBC Ltd to implement its programmes, Pandit said.
Pandit said that the company has created MSCs in 1,300 schools across the country, out of which over 1,100 projects are parts of its CSR initiative.
Pandit said the results have been encouraging for the company in terms of outcomes of a model-based teaching approach. “We have done video documentation of 25 success stories,” he added.
The initiative has covered over half-a-million students, out of which 70% are from the rural parts of the country, he said.
he company has also set an ambitious target of covering over 10,000 schools in the next five years, Pandit said. The focus will be on schools in rural areas as they value such initiatives more in comparison to private schools, who have the capacity and money muscle to spend, the MD added.
Pandit also said that the company will be collaborating with more public sector units (PSUs) as they have a better reach in the rural areas.
The company has 200 such exhibits or models but is currently working on 65 models. It intends to work on the remaining models, he said.
The company is also working towards building a platform to integrate students and field experts for the former to get guidance on career proposition, Pandit said.