Re-skilling Women: Could eLearning Be the Answer?

Let me begin with some statistics. There is a widegender disparity in the literacy rate in India: Effective literacy rates in2011 were 82.14% for men and 65.46% for women. (Source: Wikipedia)

This low literacy level in women has had dramaticsocio-economic impact in areas as diverse as family planning to economic statusof the family. Girls frequently drop out of school, especially on attainingpuberty, for various reasons including lack of basic sanitation, the risk oftravelling to schools through empty fields and deserted areas, the need to takecare of younger siblings at home, or just to lend a hand with the farming,cooking, and the other multitude of household chores. While we may screampatriarchy, these are very real ground truths that women face on a daily basis.Being economically dependent on their male family members takes away theirability to make or express their choices.

Against this backdrop, we have initiatives like the Sunhara Walmart project which is an agricultural development andempowerment initiative that works with 2,500 women farmers in Ghaziabad andAgra on overall socioeconomic empowerment. The project, implemented by Agribusiness Systems International (ASI) with funding from the Walmart Foundation, hasimplemented eLearning centers to counter constraints that women face, such asilliteracy, transportation difficulties, and low market prices. In anotherendeavor, the International Centre for Entrepreneurship and Career Development(ICECD) has been helping women develop an entrepreneurial inclination and haslaunched an eLearning module for training women in 2,000 villages across thestate of Gujarat. The fact that eLearning is being seen as an alternate mode ofmaking the necessary education and skills accessible to women brings a ray ofhope and is the context for the rest of the article.

Before I launch into “futurespection,” let me countersome probable arguments head on. It’s true that there are many villages inIndia that lack the most basic of amenities like electricity, clean drinkingwater, and passable roads. Acknowledging these challenges, I’d still like tomake a case for eLearning in re-skilling women, especially at this juncturewhere India is truly at an inflexion point. Only by envisioning a future thatis different from the past or the present can we hope to attain it.

It’d be impractical to think that eLearning willpenetrate remote villages immediately, or that women will take to it like ducksto water. However, India is at the cusp of a socio-technology revolution.Digital India is an initiative of the Government of India to ensure thatgovernment services are made available to citizens electronically by improvingonline infrastructure and by increasing Internet connectivity. The initiativeincludes plans to connect rural areas with high-speed Internet that includes anambitious plan of broadband in 2.5 lakh (250,000) villages and universal phoneconnectivity. With focused thinking and concentrated effort, re-skilling ofwomen through eLearning can ride this transformational wave, and make educationaccessible to lakhs (hundreds of thousands) of women across the country.

I will venture to lay down a few considerations inthis context. To make re-skilling women a possibility, eLearning providers andlearning designers will have to collaborate with the government and work at thegrassroots levels to identify the necessary skills and delivery model. We oftenmake the mistake of assuming in isolation that we know what will be needed.This would be a grave mistake. Women in India face a multitude of challengeswhen it comes to accessing education and other basic needs—these can be asdisparate as the issues mentioned above and also reflect the impact of caste,patriarchy, economic condition, and so on. Design and dissemination ofeLearning needs to be sensitive to the varied conditions and contexts of Indianwomen. The vast diversity of the country adds to its richness as well ascomplexity. Therefore, it would be naïve to imagine that a set of standardeLearning modules distributed across various rural areas of different stateswill solve the problems.

What is required is perhaps a localized model with acentralized support where states and regions can work with eLearning providers,educationists, government bodies, and financial supporters to design programsunique to the needs of that region. While the aim would be to educate women,such an initiative can take care of a multitude of other factors including aserious dearth of trained teachers (India faces a shortage of an estimated 1.4million trained teachers with some states worse hit than others), lack ofinfrastructure that comprises something as important and basic as clean waterand sanitation, unavailability of quality textbooks, and other socialchallenges.

Given this context, thoughtfully designed and targetedeLearning modules can be used as a base to educate both girls and boys and menand women around various aspects that are critical to the well-being of thecommunity. These range from basic literacy to family planning, entrepreneurialskills, techniques of modern farming, etc., depending on the target audience.eLearning modules could be designed to also address deeper and more fundamentalissues of caste and religion to sensitize and raise awareness—not to preach ormoralize. The dissemination model needs to be thought through carefully as well,since a majority of rural households will lack access to computers. A communityapproach where women can congregate at a central point of convenience to allmay be more likely to work. However, that day is still far away. The strategy,methodology, and the roadmap needs to be laid down with a clearly articulatedimplementation plan for the projects.

With the passage of the Companies Act, 2013, themandate for corporate social responsibility (CSR) has been formally introducedto the dashboard of the Boards of Indian companies. This can be the necessaryboost to initiatives around education that corporations willingly contributeto. One of the clauses therein states:

“With effect from April 1, 2014,every company, private limited or public limited, which either has a net worthof Rs. 500 crore or a turnover of Rs. 1,000 crore or net profit of Rs 5 crore,needs to spend at least 2% of its average net profit for the immediatelypreceding three financial years on corporate social responsibilityactivities.”  (1 crore is equivalent to10 million.)

I am no policy maker or government strategist. Nevertheless,as someone dedicated to the cause of learning and who professes to be alifelong learner and also a woman, it’s but natural to think of ways and meansby which women of this country can grow and flourish. At this juncture, quite afew things seem to be almost prophetically coming together. Namely, the revisedCompanies Act, the Digital India program, the involvement of the National SkillDevelopment Corporation (NSDC) in CSR discussions to advocate for skilldevelopment in collaboration with various Sector Skills Councils, and amultitude of NGOs like Teach for India who work with communities at thegrassroots. All can come together to co-create and define the roadmap and helplay down the much-needed strategy to educate and empower women in a manner thattakes education to them, making it accessible and contextual, helping todelineate a life that has so far been elusive. 

African proverb: If you educate a man you educate an individual, but if youeducate a woman you educate a family (nation).

References:

Why they Drop Out: Reasons for Lower Literacy Among Girls by Veena Kulkarni

E-learning to empower 40,000 Women