Day 2 - Em Tech India 2010 - Media Labs break out workshop

Use case:

Name	Chitti
Age	7
Sex	Female
Environment	Chitti is from a typical rural – poor background. Aged 7, she has watched numerous Telugu movies with big actors and exotic locations and some day wants to look as beautiful and speak foreign languages (English) and go around the world. Chitti goes to a local government run school. Her parents do not have time to look after her during the day. So, they put her in school. Besides, the school provides free lunch and her parents are happy with the arrangement at the moment.
Worries	Chitti has not many worries but often ponders over how her life would be after she attains the age of 10. Her older sister goes to work along with her mother early in the morning and comes back quite late in the evening. She often complains of headache, hunger, body pain and sometimes beats up Chitti when their mother is not watching.
What makes Chitti happy	Chitti gets lost in the world of movies. Her imagination soars to levels her parents and sister might not even comprehend. The thought of growing up to become a beautiful woman who speaks English and travels the world excites Chitti. Her dreams and imagination often leave Chitti feeling good about herself.
A day in the life of Chitti	Chitti wakes up to her father’s tantrums and sister’s kicks. Goes to school and waits eagerly for lunch. She knows that she can only enjoy it while it lasts and she shall partake in very few such lunches in the future.

Problem Statement

• Unwilling parents
  
  • Opportunity cost of a child going to school versus working
• Teacher motivation
  
  • Insufficient monitory benefits, absence of motive given that children drop in and out of school, inadequate training
• Content and effectiveness of current course material
  
  • Linked directly to teachers' in-ability to prepare lesson plans
• Student motivation
  
  • Children find rote learning tedious. In the absence of suitable teaching aids, Maths and science get difficult to understand.

Solution

• Unwilling parents
  
  Incorporating vocational training at school for higher class children and arranging for generating income out of the same helps to a certain extent in keeping the children at school. When illiterate parents begin to look up on school not only as a child day care for little kids, but as a means of generating additional family income, they might want to let the child study. Progressing to teaching marketing techniques towards the end of schooling will help the child be not only work ready but also business ready.

• Teacher motivation
  
  Training, follow up, help with initial lesson plans, notes and better monitory benefits.

• Student motivation
  
  Making the learning process fun and engaging by means of hands on sessions, field trips etc., especially for children below 12 years of age

Solution enabler

• Tying up with some individuals/organizations from the corporate sector which/who are already going in the direction of creating a better India
• Using media for creating educational content both for children and students - we did not discuss this section. Time was up and we made our presentation.