Education is our fundamental right. It empowers individuals, drives economic growth, and promotes social development. However, many children in India miss out on quality education due to various reasons such as poverty, discrimination, inadequate infrastructure, and limited access to learning resources. Many families in India cannot afford to send their children to school as they have to prioritise basic needs such as food, shelter, and healthcare. With government policies in place to ensure free education for all, many children miss this opportunity for several reasons. This is especially true for girls who face gender-based discrimination, and lack adequate safety, hygiene, and sanitation facilities. Even when children attend school, the quality of education can be poor, particularly in rural areas. There may be a lack of teachers, inadequate infrastructure, and limited access to learning resources. The pandemic has laid bare the various inadequacies. It is painfully evident that the entire education infrastructure needs transformational intervention.
At Synchrony, we are committed to the United Nations Sustainable Development Goal 4, which ensures that all children have access to inclusive and equitable quality education. Poverty and discrimination are two primary reasons many children do not continue their education. This further impacts girl education. Impoverished families often favour the male child when investing in education, and in some places, schools do not meet girls’ safety, hygiene, or sanitation needs. Thus, prioritising female education now would tackle the discriminatory gender norms and harmful practices that might deny the next generations of girls access to school and quality learning. Another key reason to focus on female education is that it holds immense potential to bring about significant positive impacts on families, communities, and the nation as a whole. When women receive education, they are more likely to achieve higher incomes, promote healthier families, and actively engage in civic and political spheres. Educated women also serve as influential role models for younger girls, and help break the cycle of poverty and inequality perpetuating across generations.
Our flagship initiative, ‘Education as an Equaliser’ expands access to higher education, skills training in high-growth fields, and financial literacy for underserved communities. We have several community initiatives implemented under this flagship programme. We launched scholarship programmes which support two categories of students: help students complete their high school and college, and upskill graduates for better job opportunities.
Further, we understand that while traditional education focuses on academic learning and theoretical knowledge, skill-led education prioritises the acquisition of practical skills that can be immediately applied in a workplace. It makes students job ready, encourages them to think creatively, develop innovative ideas and solutions, and helps them to continuously update themselves to remain competitive in the job market.
Our flagship initiative, ‘Education as an Equaliser’ expands access to higher education, skills training in high-growth fields, and financial literacy for underserved communities. We have several community initiatives implemented under this flagship programme. We currently support 119 lesser-privileged students, of which, 88 per cent are girls. They are selected based on need and merit from tribal, rural, and urban economically weaker backgrounds. We place them in public State universities of Telangana and Andhra Pradesh, private education institutions and universities, and premier national-level institutions. We collaborate with academic institutions, non-profits, and the government for this.
Under this Flagship Citizenship programme, we offer scholarship programmes that support two categories of students:
- Help students complete their high school and college
- Upskill graduates for better job opportunities
Implemented with the support of three partner non-profits, ASSIST, Nirmaan Organisation and United Way Hyderabad, 74 students have been selected for scholarships for high school/intermediate and graduation courses such as BA, B.Com, B.SC, Pharma, Nursing, B.Tech and MBBS, and 40 female students for upskilling in IT-Enabled Services (ITeS) and financial literacy.
As we complete the upskilling programme for the current academic year, 28 out of 40 girls have already been placed in various organisations. We are also looking at learning opportunities and career development programmes for students pursuing graduation, such as internships, summer projects and campus placements. We also support the cause of bringing technology to schools and colleges, making it accessible at their doorstep. These initiatives complement the schools’ efforts to increase overall school enrolment rates and decrease dropout rates.
At Synchrony, we believe that our social initiatives are enriched further with employee participation. Two of our flagship volunteer-led projects are the Robotics for Children and Coding Programme where we train volunteers to teach robotics and coding, such as scratch programme, HTML, etc., to lesser privileged students based on a pre-decided curriculum created by Soham Academy and Nirmaan Organisation, respectively. The employees sign up for these programmes and dedicate their time to being trained by the non-profits. They also commit to training the students virtually or in person based on their availability and work schedule.
Robotics for Children – Schools and colleges, especially the public and low-budget institutions, are not exposed to or experiencing the technological revolution as the rest of the world. While one can now develop apps with little or no training, aided by a mobile device, many students are missing this wave due to a lack of accessibility. We are bridging this gap by providing these youngsters with robotics training. We train our volunteers from tech and non-tech backgrounds in robotics. They then virtually train the children. In 16 months, we trained 9,125 less privileged children (55 per cent of whom were girls) in 75 government and low-budget schools in Telangana.
Digital Labs – We believe every student should have access to the Internet, and digital education must be accessible at all government schools. Under Disruptive Digital Intervention (DDI), we set up one new digital lab each year at government high schools with a dedicated computer instructor and interactive English software on all computers. We support it for four years until it is self-sustaining.
This project aims to digitally empower students from Standard VI to X, giving them a better chance of employment and higher education in future.
The Lab solves three major problems that a regular government school student might face:
(i) Lack of fundamentals as per age and grade.
(ii) Exposure to the computer’s practical knowledge.
(iii) Ability to communicate in simple English.
We have set up seven labs since 2017. We are currently supporting 1,111 girl students with digital labs at five girls’ high schools in tribal and rural districts of Telangana.
At Synchrony, we believe that our social initiatives are enriched further with employee participation. Two of our flagship volunteer-led projects are the Robotics for Children and Coding Programme where we train volunteers to teach robotics and coding, such as scratch programme, HTML, etc., to lesser privileged students based on a pre-decided curriculum created by Soham Academy and Nirmaan Organisation, respectively. The employees sign up for these programmes and dedicate their time to being trained by the non-profits. They also commit to training the students virtually or in person based on their availability and work schedule.
We also launched a Scholarship Volunteer Programme, in partnership with Nirmaan Organisation, to provide virtual training sessions for soft skills and job readiness for the students selected for the Upskilling Scholarship programme.
We also plan to launch a mentorship programme wherein employees will guide and work with these students to support them as they navigate their future paths. Additionally, we always look for opportunities for these students to visit our workspace and showcase their learnings to the senior and executive leadership. They experience the corporate environment and are motivated to learn and join such workplaces in the future. They also meet the volunteer trainers who guided them virtually during the project training.
We continue to strive to ensure that the basic right to education does not become elusive due to affordability concerns. By fostering inclusion, we look forward to continuing the positive momentum of our Education as an Equaliser initiative.
