Page 62 - Education World September 2021

Special Report

RURAL INDIA’S

RURBAN SAVIOURS

Although the Covid-19 pandemic which has forced the lockdown
of all education institutions has made the extraordinary efforts of
rural India’s education evangelists more difficult, many have devised
innovative solutions to maintain children’s learning continuity

Abhilasha Ojha

R ESIDING IN A REMOTE VILLAGE IN tion for providing STEM programmes/education to 150,000

the educationally under-served state
rural children, establishing innovation labs in government
schools, designing teaching tools, indigenous rockets and
of Odisha (pop. 45.4 million), unsur-
scientific solutions to solve the real-life problems of rural
prisingly, Rina Bagha (18) hadn’t
heard of the Houston (USA)-based
citizens.
National Aeronautics and Space Ad-
Last year, when Pradhan was scouting rural India to put
ministration (NASA). Forced to drop
man Exploration Rover Challenge (NHERC) 2021, during
out of class XII last year of the state together a team of under-19 students for the NASA Hu-
board-affiliated government school a chance meeting he discovered Rina had the technical and
in her village after her father, a welder and the sole bread- team-working skills to build the hardy and durable remote-
winner of her family of three, passed away, Bagha, unable to controlled automotive vehicle — rover — capable of negoti-
cope with studies and work, quit school and landed a job as ating the rough surface of the moon as required of student
a shop-floor welder in Chandaka, Bhubaneswar. teams signing up for NHERC, 2021. A week later while still
That’s when Anil Pradhan, founder-director of the Ka- touring rural Odisha, he inducted Kailash Chandra Barik
lapada (Odisha)-based Navonmesh Prasar Foundation & (18), another high school (class XII) drop-out employed
School for Rural Innovation (NPFSRI, estb.2015), and the in a cycle repair shop in Malkangiri, a village 600 km from
online Young Tinker Academy (estb. 2020) promoted with Bhubaneswar, the admin capital of Odisha, into the team he
the objective of “educating students from socio-economically was building to win NHERC, 2021.
underprivileged households of Odisha through an interdisci- “I have great faith in the inherent innovative and prob-
plinary curriculum”, discovered Bagha’s potential. Over the lem-solving capabilities of India’s rural people and youth in
past five years, NPFSRI has built a formidable local reputa- particular. Despite being forced by circumstances to attend

62 EDUCATIONWORLD SEPTEMBER 2021