Throughout the developing world, going to school is rarely free. Students are required to pay their own transportation costs, purchase uniforms, textbooks, notebooks, and pencils. Children who cannot afford these basic costs cannot attend school. As families struggle to stay above the poverty line, the additional expense of school becomes an unlikely investment. And yet, universal education has proven to be the most effective means of eliminating endemic poverty, and on an individual level, the most sustainable bridge to a self-reliant life. Research has shown that every year of school increases an individual’s wages by 10 percent. The gains are even greater in developing countries.
Amma is pioneering ways to overcome barriers that stand in the way of access to education, especially in rural India. And from the larger perspective, she is instilling children and youth with the capacity to believe in themselves and imbibe the values that sustain a meaningful life.
AmritaCREATE uses accessible technologies to support education. Its key area of work is in impoverished areas of rural India where literacy is lower and school-dropout rates are higher than in urban centers. Social and educational systems must be designed in such a manner that creativity and values are nurtured along with knowledge. The solutions require an interdisciplinary approach that draws upon expertise in the physical, biological, statistical, and social sciences.
AmritaRITE provides tablet‐aided education through tutoring in rural, especially remote, areas of India. The tablets carry an incentive for the children to participate, as it is an opportunity for them to engage with this “new” technology. With an overall vision to eliminate the stigma of being illiterate or poorly educated, the focus is on children who are disadvantaged by factors such as geography, gender, caste, and poverty. In addition, AmritaRITE runs classes for drop-outs to help them return to school via bridging courses. The project employs local teachers, is active in 59 villages across India, and has reached more than 10,000 children.
Amrita PMKVY is a partnership with the Govt of India designed to target rural youth often sidelined from formal training and employment opportunities. The students are given access to state-of-the-art skill training in critical, industry-relevant areas. Training centers are operating in the states of Odisha, Kerala, Tamil Nadu, Jharkhand, and Chhattisgarh. They provide training in five areas: 2- and 3-Wheeler Automotive Repair, General Plumbing, Self-Employed Tailor, General Duty Healthcare Assistant, and Domestic Data-Entry Operator. The centers enable socially marginalized and economically disadvantaged youth to access skill development free of cost.
OLabs is a solution to providing access to laboratory experiments for schools across India using the Internet, making it more efficient and less expensive. Many of the students do not have basic laboratory facilities, live in remote rural areas, or face a teacher shortage. Hosted on a Govt of India site, OLabs started by providing experiments in Physical, Chemical, and Biology Sciences for students from classes 9 to 12, and later added Mathematics and English. Access is free for schools upon registration and can even be made available to students with no access to physical labs or equipment.
VALUE is transforming the face of higher education and research, through a revolutionary new educational tool—virtual labs. The vision is to provide free and easy access to high-quality educational resources for higher-education students across India, regardless of whether they are based in geographically remote rural areas or economically challenged backgrounds. The VALUE Initiative is a project dedicated to developing these virtual labs in various science and engineering disciplines. They are media-rich online-learning environments that allow users to conduct physical laboratory experiments in a computer-simulated environment.