Our Solution

Educational Radio

The onset of COVID-19 meant online learning became the only mode of education delivery in many parts of the world. Online learning is revolutionary in many ways: it can take education modules to remote corners of the country and help supplement learning benchmarks for different age groups. The onset of COVID-19 meant online learning became the only mode of education delivery in many parts of the world. This made visible the stark inequalities of class, caste and gender in the state of Maharashtra, as many students were forced out of the education system or faced learning setbacks in terms of access to e-learning resources.

In the state of Maharashtra, many students lacked access to resources that would enable them to adequately participate in online learning. In a survey conducted by the Maharashtra State Council of Educational Research and Training (MSCERT) and the United Nations International Children’s Emergency Fund (UNICEF) before the beginning of the academic year in June, it was found that of the 5.98 million students who had access to a smartphone, only about 57% had internet connectivity. A total of 737 schools, both public and private, and 6,855 students (between Years 1 to 10) were surveyed. Students in remote parts of the state like Gadchiroli were unable to attend online classes due to poor networks and a lack of digital resources.

Thus, Alliance G18 seeks to bridge the educational divide experienced by rural students. Our solution is to create a service platform that connects the teachers to the students through radio signals. Essentially, teachers will record their lessons and these lessons will then be broadcasted by the provided equipment and the students can hear it using a specific frequency for each of the schools. A similar initiative was conducted by Restless Development Zambia, in which pre-recorded lessons broadcast at local radio stations, and can be listened by students at home.

Desirability

Alliance G18's platform is a desirable innovation as it bridges the digital divide experienced by many students in rural Maharashtra. Public schools in Gadchiroli lack the resources to adequately provide online learning to their students, resulting in elementary school children, in particular, falling behind in their education and childhood development. Therefore, our platform responds to government school shutdowns and accommodates social distancing measures, ensuring that students are receiving a quality education despite the circumstances created by the pandemic. In enabling students to attend their broadcasted lessons, Alliance G18 strives to provide all students with access to quality education. This, in turn, results in positive outcomes for elementary students as we increase their motivation to continue their studies, seek and obtain meaningful employment and decent incomes, and thus, break generational poverty cycles.

Feasibility

Alliance G18 has committed to looking internally and objectively at assessing the feasibility of our platform. As an organisation, our first step was to evaluate our operational capabilities, concluding that utilising existing systems was much more feasible than creating new adaptive technologies. Instead of building or purchasing new radio devices, Alliance G18 provides a service in which students can tune into their lessons using existing radios or radios embedded in their mobile phones. The question we ask ourselves daily is how our platform can support a stronger and healthier business for the community. The answer is by listening. This led to Alliance G18 minimising the number of resources used and instead, adopting a simple innovation for this pressing community issue; juugad.

Viability

Alliance G18 will be selling our service platform to different public schools in the Gadchiroli district. These schools will be able to utilise our expertise and partnerships to provide their students with radio-broadcasted lessons. Initially, we will invest in recording equipment that will be provided to the schools through our partnership with Restless Development India. This is a viable measure due to the substantially low cost of a microphone and transmitter. However, as Alliance G18 grows as a social enterprise, we seek to apply for a government grant within 3 years to fund our innovation.

Therefore, as the Ministry of Education and the Ministry of Information and Broadcast purchase our service to connect students to teachers via the radio, we establish an income stream for our social enterprise. Ultimately, this income will outweigh the initial spending for the recording equipment. The profits made will also be reinvested back into improving our platform and social enterprise, as well as donated to like-organisations that seek to provide students with the mechanisms to receive a quality education. Additionally, to supplement our profits, we seek to implement advertising between sessions that promote local businesses. In collaborating with local businesses and communities, Alliance G18 hopes to establish confidence in the educational program and ensure its long term sustainability in the region.

Our Prototype

Our prototype describes the process by which Alliance G18 conducts its radio-delivery education lessons. Essentially, teachers will be able to record audio lessons in schools, using equipment provided by Restless Development India. Alliance G18's role is to deliver these recorded lessons to students by collaborating with Radio Vividh Bharati 101.8 FM and the local Ministry of Information and Broadcast, to acquire the bandwidth in which school-specific frequencies in the district of Gadchiroli are set up. Once these frequencies are acquired, the lessons are broadcasted and this information is shared within the community, allowing students to tune into their school-specific radio station to listen to their daily lessons. Where students experience challenges or difficulty understanding a concept, they are able to replay specific sections of the broadcast for further clarification. Our innovation will play a significant role in bridging the gap between education delivery in rural and urban areas. With this platform, we strive to enable students in achieving their full potential; by completing higher education, obtaining meaningful employment, and alleviating themselves and their communities out of poverty.

Impact

No Poverty (SDG 1)

Alliance G18's solution works towards achieving the objectives of SDG 1: No Poverty. In improving access to education in rural communities, students are more likely to continue attending school. This increases their likelihood of acquiring employment, gaining an income and thus, improving their quality of life by alleviating themselves and their families out of poverty.

Quality Education (SDG 4)

Alliance G18 focuses our mission on rural communities that lack connectivity and communication devices to access their online lessons. Alliance G18 was inspired by SDG 4: Quality Education, and our platform strives to consistently work in line with its targets. By facilitating the delivery of lessons via radio, we seek to provide meaningful and quality education in region-specific languages and ensure no student is left behind.

Decent Work and Economic Growth (SDG 8)

Our platform seeks to achieve the long-term initiative of SDG 8: Decent Work & Economic Growth. By bridging the digital divide in rural India, Alliance G18's radio lesson delivery hopes to assist students in obtaining decent employment and thus, facilitating growth within their nation's economies. As most students require the completion of secondary education to gain meaningful employment, Alliance G18's radio lessons play a significant role in helping students start working & boost the economy.

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