In its 25th year of impact, Bharti Airtel Foundation's focus to remain quality education for underprivileged, rural children

The rise of technology in education is a transformative force, especially for rural students who face barriers to accessing quality resources. Some of the online platforms and resources are reshaping the educational landscape by making high-quality content accessible, fostering interactive learning, and equipping students with critical skills for the digital age.

The Government of India is leading and catalysing this space by many of its platforms.

At Bharti Airtel Foundation, we have initiated integration of technology in Satya Bharti Schools through the implementation of digital classrooms, technology labs, robotic labs, language labs, Tab-labs, and TheTeacherApp.

These enhancements enable rural students and teachers to access quality resources for education, personalise their learning processes as well as enables teachers to use better pedagogies in classrooms.

Our digital classrooms, equipped with interactive projectors, tablets, and multimedia resources, have empowered the teaching learning processes by presenting dynamic content, including videos, simulations, and interactive exercises, which cater to a variety of learning styles.

This approach facilitates a better understanding of complex concepts.

Additionally, online applications like TheTeacherApp offer a wealth of knowledge and personalised practice, promoting self-paced learning for our teachers.

Furthermore, technology and language labs for senior students have made a significant difference. Engaging in hands-on activities and STEM (Science, Technology Engineering, and Math) projects allows students to sharpen their critical thinking, problem-solving, and teamwork abilities. These initiatives ignite creativity and innovation, offering practical experiences that equip students for future careers in technology and STEM sectors. 

Community engagement plays an essential role in tackling educational challenges in rural areas, especially with regards to access to quality education.

Active participation from local communities fosters a more comprehensive approach, ensuring that educational initiatives are both culturally relevant and contextually appropriate.

Engaging local communities through awareness initiatives also promotes educational ownership and sustainability of initiatives. Community’s involvement can play a decisive role in transforming educational landscape in rural India.

The foundation's strategy is to engage the local community with an objective of enhancing students’ holistic growth by ensuring experiential learning and to deepen students’ understanding of their environment while igniting their curiosity.

This approach, in alignment with National Education Policy (NEP) 2020, enables students with an enriched learning environment that extends beyond traditional classrooms.

A few initiatives below that the Foundation has undertaken in its rural Satya Bharti Schools to engage parents and communities as integral partners in children’s education.

1. Community Volunteering Program

We actively engage local communities to enable students with opportunities to explore diverse local vocations, skills, occupations and essential services. The initiative emphasises the importance of experiential learning and nurtures a sense of shared responsibility amongst the community members towards students’ education.

It also encourages ‘Dignity of Labour,’ instilling respect among students for the occupations their parents are involved in. 

2. Home Mentoring Initiative

Recognising the important role of parents as integral partners in their children's education, especially during the child’s formative years, we have implemented parent orientations, community engagement programs, and Parent-Teacher Meetings (PTMs) where parents are trained on use of mobile for educational purposes where training and orientation on selected apps is given.

These efforts have successfully extended learning beyond the classrooms, creating a collaborative model that fosters a strong support system for students at home.

3. Saksharta Bharti Abhiyan 

This initiative highlights the significance of education in the society by focusing on learning opportunities for non-literate adults in the communities.

Satya Bharti School students take on the role of educators during their summer vacation and teach basic literacy and numeracy skills to their elders and other non-literate individuals in their families and communities.

This initiative not only empowers the local community, build strong bonds but also strengthens students’ foundational literacy and numeracy skills.

As we embark on our 25th year of impact, we remain steadfast in focussing on quality education opportunities for underprivileged children in rural India. Our commitment to quality, innovation, and impact will continue to guide us.

At the heart of our advancement lies the holistic development of students and the capacity building of teachers. We are strategically focused on improving the integration of digital learning tools and technologies, ensuring that rural students gain access to high-quality, technology-enhanced education. 

We aim to equip educators with contemporary teaching practices that inspire and engage learners. TheTeacherApp marks our first steps in use of technology to impact of quality of education at national scale.

Additionally, we seek to amplify our impact through initiatives such as the Quality Support Program, which is a partnership programme with state governments for improving the quality of education in the Government schools.

As we look ahead, TheTeacherApp is one of the key innovations of the Foundation that exemplifies our commitment to transforming education.

This digital platform will play a key role in enhancing teacher effectiveness and we shall continue our efforts to strengthen the app for large scale impact.

In the field of higher education, we are committed to providing greater opportunities for students, especially girls, by offering scholarships for technology-focused engineering programmes.

Our goal is to provide an equitable opportunity to that meritorious students coming from lesser privileged background have access to equitable and future-ready education, by means of the fully funded scholarship.

Through the empowerment of educators and strong collaborations, we believe we can uphold our legacy of meaningful service and create a lasting impact in the lives of students in India.