WGF, Pratham partner to promote girls education in India

A leading US non-profit, started by alumni of Indian Institutes of Technology, has partnered with India's largest educational NGO Pratham to promote girls' education in underserved communities across five states in India.

WHEElS Global Foundation (WGF) is a nonprofit organisation focussed on applying technology to uplift rural communities and provide technological solutions to global challenges in six areas; water, health, education, energy, lifestyles, and sustainability.

Through the partnership, WGF will help enhance Pratham's 'Second Chance' programme, which assists female school dropouts over the age of 14 in completing their secondary school education and earning their 10th Standard diploma, through the provision of digital learning resources, WGF said in a statement.

On partnering with Pratham on the Second Chance initiative to assist the young dropout girls, WGF President Hiten Ghosh said, "Using digital teaching tools allows the young adults to learn at their own pace, which is important."

Pratham currently operates 33 centers connected to 200 learning sites in nine Indian states of Andhra Pradesh, Bihar, Chhattisgarh, Gujarat, Madhya Pradesh, Maharashtra, Odisha, Rajasthan and Telangana, aimed at supporting female dropouts. The partnership will introduce digital learning solutions in five of these states, reaching 1,700 students.

laptops and tablets with pre-loaded Pratham content in the areas of Science, Math and English as well as "Spoken Tutorials", a digital educational tool which will be made accessible to students at Pratham learning sites, which typically caters to 25-30 students, it said.

"By augmenting the girls’ education program with access to interactive and engaging digital content, we hope to provide them with a more robust learning experience and improve outcomes," Head of Pratham’s Second Chance programme Renu Seth said.