'World on wheels' to promote digital literacy in rural schools

Chennai, Sep 9: The Gandhigram Trust in Tamil Nadu has launched a unique programme - "World on Wheels" to digitally empower the rural students in the state.

A Volvo coach, whose interiors have been modified to resemble a classroom, is equipped with over a dozen computer terminals allowing the students to get a feel of the computers and delve into the literacy programme. The vehicle cruises around halting near schools to provide the education.

"The Gandhigram Trust has initiated an innovative method of digital learning for the rural students and community. This digital literacy programme "World on Wheels" was launched recently with the support of Redington Foundation in Chennai and HP (Hewlett-Packard company in California)," said K Shivakumar, Managing Trustee of the Gandhigram-based trust. Emphasising the need for rural children to receive the same level of digital literacy as urban students, he told PTI that the initiative would help the students perform better in their academics.

"The Gandhigram Trust has been implementing plenty of outreach programmes for the enhancement of rural development and improving livelihood of rural people. One such initiative is digital learning," he added. The objective of the project is to ensure access to basic computer literacy and thereby help students move onto acquiring more advanced technical skills, Shivakumar said.

The programme was launched by Muthukumarasamy, CEO, Redington Foundation. He highlighted that pre-test should be conducted for cognitive level of students, and one after having digital literacy to measure the cognitive development of the students.

Arun Prasad, operations head, Redington Foundation, said that the computer literacy programme could be conducted collaboratively with various departments, institutions for mass communication and get effective outreach. G Pangajam, Secretary, Gandhigram Trust, insisted that the programme is being implemented with the core values of 'Towards the Best' at the students and community level.