There is urgent need to protect the future of our  students and ensure that they are adequately equipped to maintain their personal health and hygiene, have better nutrition to survive and make sure that their learning process continue at any cost.

Some questions that need immediate attention are:

·Communicating and engaging continuously.

·Adopt new ways of working and teaching methods.

·Informing and empowering staff and students.

·Keeping students engaged in the long term.

·Getting the benefits passed on to the community at large.

·Developing skills of students at grassroots level.

·Provide students with basic facilities such as food, clothing, shelter, PPEs etc.

The first step consists of protecting health and safety of the students and preventing their loss of learning hours through remote learning. The overall approach should be multidimensional to ensure it prevents dropouts, ensures healthy student conditions, and brings in value in terms of new techniques to promote rapid learning recovery in key areas once students return to school.

About Yuva Unstoppable

In this pandemic situation teaching and learning obviously took a back seat in the interest of the health of the students. Millions of students are out of school. In India, the crisis has brought alive the equity gap even further with the children from under-resourced communities being severely affected as schools and colleges continue to remain shut and without access to technology. If the trend continues, there are chances that despite being promoted to higher grades, these students may drop out once the schools re-open in the post-COVID era, primarily because of below-par grade level learning efficiencies induced by learning discontinuity.

Moreover, the Education delivery model will be impacted a lot requiring radical rethinking of Education Technologies and need for innovative Online Teaching and Learning methods in order to continue the education delivery process. Yuva Unstoppable strongly believed that the COVID-19 might have pressed paused button on some activities across the globe, but never the education and empowerment of the children and youth of the country. They spoke to 89 school principals, 900+ parents, and about 2500 students pan India randomly to understand the current gap in education, especially among the children from less privileged backgrounds. Additionally, it also convened a digital dialogue with its advisory board members, supporters, partners and key stakeholders to come up with a comprehensive plan for these children.

Yuva conducted a dialogue in which many well-known public figures, extra-ordinary leaders, and subject experts like Paul Polman (former global CEO, Unilever), R. Balki (legendary Indian film director), Dr. Anna Chandy (Counsellor & Chairperson, Deepika Padukone’s The Live Love Laugh Foundation), Gaurav Gupta (co-founder, Zomato), Parthiv Patel (former Indian cricketer), Sangram Singh (Commonwealth wrestling champion), JD Majethia (Indian actor, director and producer), Dr. Ruth Kattumuri (Co-director, India Observatory, LSE), and many more participated. Finally, it started with a pilot with grade 6-8 students from 50 government schools of Gujarat.

Based on the detailed survey and advisory dialogue, Yuva came up with a carefully tailored program in remote learning for the students from the government aided schools across the country. The team worked tirelessly to ensure the systematic creation of an online teaching mechanism for thousands of students. Yuva Unstoppable began engaging students by providing access to smart devices and internet through a range of diverse existing and unique online content via different digital platforms like YouTube, WhatsApp, Google Future Classrooms (GFCs), and so on. Key modules include awareness about COVID-19, health and hygiene, mental health and overall wellbeing, value based education (gratitude, self-belief, leadership, etc.) and extra-curricular activities like art and craft, yoga, and much more. This has not only benefitted the students but also helped promote awareness among and empower their family members, teachers, and communities, at large.

I) Google Future Classrooms (GFCs)

To ensure a smooth project implementation and education delivery process a project management team consisting of project heads and session experts was constituted. Following are key roles for project support team:

·Creation/curation of unique content based on the learning needs of the students

·Providing technical support to all stakeholders (students,teachers and administrator)

·Reporting & Resolution of issues / problems with the solution and softwares

·Tracking and following-up each issue / complaint to resolution

·Creation of knowledge base on frequently asked questions (FAQs) to aid the users.

·Monitoring & maintaining data regarding student participation, enrolment, engagement, outcomes, etc.

·Periodic reporting on student indicators such as attendance, student performance, behavioural progress, enrolment etc.

·Reports of teachers as in number of lectures, course covered, etc.

-Quantitative Impact

The quantitative impact is clear from the table below.

V) Potential Qualitative Outputs

The methodology also threw up possibilities for qualitative interventions and impact as well.

·Each student will become a ‘Corona Warrior’ sitting at home by better understanding the global pandemic and importance of health to defeat it.

·Not only the students, but their families and communities will also gain awareness about the health crisis and get a chance to learn various other topics while sitting home with their children

·The solution enables students to learn from their home. This will ensure that grade- level minimum learning competencies are retained.

·The teachers and principals also demonstrated keen interest and enthusiasm.

·Solution focuses on holistic development of the student and designed in such a way that it enhances interaction between teachers and students.

VI) Feedback of the School Teachers

The programme received several positive feedback from the teachers from these schools.

·“It is so fascinating to see our students live and learn concepts which otherwise wouldn’t have been possible.”

·“Lectures, doubt solving and homework submission is now on a click.”

·“I am enjoying online training as I am getting to know new things and able to connect with students online.”

·“We are lucky to have YUVA to support us and our students in this time.”

·“We are proud to be a part of such a foundation who wants growth in students as well as teachers.”

·“This will not only sustain in this lockdown but will also be used in future.”

The Programme partners played key role in providing content, impact assessment, and audits. As mentioned before we had also technology partners.

·KPMG is the external auditors, Deloitte is the internal audit partner, and also undertakes reviews of the processes.

·IIMA supports the organization with impact assessment and analysis for their flagship program in school transformation through WASH infrastructure upgradation.

·London School of Economics (LSE) India Observatory is also the chief impact assessment partner and recently launched a case study on the grassroots impact created by Yuva Unstoppable – ‘Sustainable Human Capital Development with Yuva Unstoppable’

·UNICEF is onboard with the NGO for WASH related infrastructure knowledge, design and Behavior Change Communication among the students

VIII) Corporate Partners

The key corporate partners are: 

·HDFC Bank

·3M

·IBM

·Google

·SGS

·Korn Ferry

·Vedanta

·Disney

·Hexaware

·Nomura Bank

·HT Parekh Foundation

·Charities Aids Foundation (CAF)

·United Way