Sunshine Story: It's all fun and games in Maharashtra's Zilla Parishad schools

Children in Bhiwandi have been lapping up Alankar Warghade's videos and audios

In these times of social media addiction, here is evidence, and a stellar example, that it can, and should, be used for the good. A teacher from a Bhiwandi zilla parishad school has begun e-learning sessions on WhatsApp for his students, after having started an e-library and audio lessons of important books. He is also training other teachers for the same. And it's not just his school that's benefitting from this; more than 18,000 students, and their parents, of zilla parishad schools across the state have joined him on WhatsApp.

The strategy
Alankar Warghade taught himself how to make videos and audios by watching tutorials on YouTube, working on honing his skills for a month. His aim: to get students excited about learning by imparting it in an engaging manner. "This initiative enables children to learn while having fun. My strategy packages cartoons with concepts. This serves two purposes - relaxing and gaining knowledge. And this also frees the children from nagging by their parents to study," he explained.

"So far, we have prepared audio lessons of popular stories well known in India, besides audio books not available here. Now, we plan to focus on study material. We will make WhatsApp groups of parents and students for each standard and send them videos that will explain the difficult concepts of a subject in an easy and fun manner."

A happy parent
Yogesh Joshi's daughter, who is in Std V at the school, is loving it. "Alankar sir has done a superb job. It is not only helping our children, but also those in the adivasi padas. Our children used to be glued to TVs, and no amount of shouting would help. But now, thanks to his work, they are learning important stories and gaining knowledge," he said.

"We go to the adivasi padas to teach children there; earlier, they didn't seem serious about studies and would come late for classes. But since we started showing them Alankar sir's videos, they have become punctual and even interested."

Alankar Warghade, teacher
'This initiative enables children to learn while having fun. My strategy packages cartoons with concepts. This serves two purposes - relaxing and gaining knowledge. And this also frees the children from nagging by their parents to study'

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