Ringing in a Difference – School ki Ghanti

What happens when a young information designer looks beyond her world of e-learning, online platforms and easy digital accessibility? What happens when she recognizes her privilege but more importantly, identifies the glaring gap in education accessibility that is not being addressed in the current pandemic situation?

Vedika Lall a design graduate from Srishti School of Art, Design and Technology, had all the reasons to enjoy her gap year from the comforts of her home while preparing for a masters abroad next year. But the pandemic situation had her questioning the systems around her, and looking beyond the immediate solutions of online learning that were recommended for school children all over.

How would children without access to gadgets, devices and internet connection avail education? She reached out to a few NGOs in her hometown Patna, only to discover that while the organizations were managing to provide essentials for survival, providing education was not something they had the bandwidth to tackle – since it was difficult to conduct regular classes in the current situation.

This is why ‘School ki Ghanti’ was born. Combining her fascination with audio (especially radio technology) with interactive voice response system - she came up with this initiative that would allow any child to listen to an educative story everyday over a phone call. All one needed to do was accept the call when it ringed, sharp at 4 pm every day.

  

A small team of collaborators got together to curate stories, tweak them, perform, record and edit them – ready for upload for a broadcast. Each one working pro-bono to contribute towards this cause for inclusive, impactful education. Adapting stories from Pratham books, they had to be conscious of many factors – brevity, engagement, relevance and value.

A proactive back-end data analysis and focused feedback evaluation system constantly helped them make the modules more effective. The involvement of a multi-talented team ensured a multi-pronged approach for maximum impact. A 5-minute long narrative takes a lot of effort of multiple people – planning the schedule, the content, communication and impact analysis are seriously undertaken keeping in mind the target audience and with aspirations for scalability to reach the lakhs of children who are currently deprived of any kind of learning opportunity.

What started with phone calls reaching 30 kids in May, now has more than 250 kids listening in, diligently doing the activities as instructed at the end of each story. Many maintain a notebook where they record the stories they heard and the lessons learnt, and also the ensuing activities they undertook. There are some farming communities where access to a simple mobile cell phone (not even a smart phone) is impossible. Even in such areas, with the help of collaborators like The Child Trust they have managed to get their stories heard, where the teacher makes the phone available to them in groups of ten. They follow social distancing norms and listen to call on speaker phone, after which the teacher facilitates discussion and the exercise.  

The excitement for this project is growing and more than 25 storytellers have offered their art for this platform. The team has worked out a schedule to ensure consistency as well as variety, while retaining interest and cultivating new knowledge for these children, aged 6 to 12 years.  

After the first month which was dipping into personal capital, they launched a crowdfunding effort which helped pool in a whopping 65 thousand rupees to escalate the project to be able to afford more calls to reach more children. The cost of providing phone stories to one child for one week is a meagre 25 rupees and many people had come forward to help provide this enriching experience to the many many children in dire need.

Vedika and team are working on how to make this model sustainable and scalable. Social innovators are recognizing this as a promising initiative to afford education to the children at the bottom of the pyramid. While the world is moving towards more dependence of apps and digital tools, we must be aware of the large strata of the society that probably has a single device shared by a family of 6. And most are not equipped to use the interfaces of smart phones, let alone be able to download the relevant learning apps. The inherent motivation and urge is also commonly missing among the children as well as their guardians.

In such a grim reality, School Ki Ghanti rings in a note of hope and inspiration – cracking open the portal to a new world of possibilities that the children can escape into, on the wings of a good story.

And certainly, this is as essential a service as face masks and shields.

You can know more about School Ki Ghanti through their Instagram page https://www.instagram.com/schoolkighanti/

The core team involved in this endeavor:

Pankhuri Sinha

Story curator and writer

Pankhuri is a final year student pursuing Product & Lifestyle design at Pearl Academy,Jaipur. She is also doing a distance course in English Hons. from Ignou.

Medha Kapoor

Sound Designer and Producer

Medha is currently a 3rd year student of Symbiosis Centre for Media and Communication, Pune, pursuing a degree in BA Mass Communication 

Uurja Bothra

Business Strategist

Uurja is an Economics graduate from Lady Shri Ram College, Delhi University, who is currently working as a Risk Analyst at Uber.

Vedika Lall

Founder and Designer

Vedika is an Information Designer graduated from Srishti School of Art, Design and Technology, Bangalore. She has worked as a Research Associate for Secure Himalaya project by UNDP and is currently working as a Brand and Systems Designer.

“Storyteller elves at School ki Ghanti curate stories which act as gifts of imagination and education to our listeners. We revel in our listeners and aim to behold the traditional storytelling practices. Our storytellers perform these stories, and give life to the dialogues, thus encouraging imagination in our little listeners. We believe that stories hold a strong value and align with our oral traditions too. Here, phones act as a perfect tool to interact, engage, inform and effectively educate listeners in their mother tongue. It is the most accessible medium for both urban and rural citizens and can facilitate remote learning.”