Marico Limited’s Nihar Shanti Pathshala Funwala initiative empowers more than 130,000 teachers across 64,000 schools during the pandemic

Mumbai : Aiming to bridge the pandemic-induced gap in the country’s education landscape through technology, Marico Limited’s Nihar Shanti Pathshala Funwala (NSPF) has empowered more than 130,000 teachers across 64,000 government schools in states such as Madhya Pradesh and Rajasthan till date. Driven by the purpose of making a difference in the lives of students and teachers, Marico reaffirms its commitment to empowering India 2.0 to lead with excellence this World Literacy Day.

In association with the State Education Department of Madhya Pradesh and NGO partner LeapforWord, the literacy-led initiative empowered the government teachers to bridge the gaps in English communication through WhatsApp Enterprise model-based English Literacy Program. The program was conceptualized on an algorithm that translated English to Sanskrit and vice versa, thus enabling accelerated English learning as a subject and not as a language. Vernacular-based classroom instructions simplified the learning process, empowering the teachers to confidently engage and help their students.

As part of the program, Nihar Shanti Pathshala Funwala rolled out a WhatsApp-based Teacher Empowerment initiative The technological upgrade aimed to arm the teachers with the necessary resources and skills to bolster English literacy among the students using engaging educational content in innovative, practical, and rural-ready formats. Since March 2020, Nihar Shanti Pathshala Funwala has successfully trained over 1.3 lakh teachers across 64,000 schools while improving access to English learning for more than 1 million students from over 31,000 villages in Madhya Pradesh.

Speaking about the programme, Udayraj Prabhu, EVP Business Transformation, IT and Head CSR, Marico Limited has said that, “ As a socially conscious brand, we are on a constant lookout for ways to give back to society. When the pandemic hit the country and shut the schools, we were aware that underprivileged students were going to be disproportionately affected by the sudden disruption in their education. Since education is directly tied to social empowerment, we decided to leverage the power of technology to prevent long-term gaps from occurring in children’s learning journeys. Through the Nihar Shanti Pathshala Funwala initiative, we concentrated our efforts on facilitating English learning solutions for government school teachers. To date, we have touched the lives of more than 1.3 lakh teachers and over a million students in Madhya Pradesh. We are extremely grateful for the support we received from the State Education Department of Madhya Pradesh as well as our NGO partner LeapforWord. This World Literacy Day, we are reaffirming our commitment to empowering the country to lead with excellence.”