To revitalize the Ganga river and establish its significance amongst teachers and school students, Schoolnet India Limited, an edtech company, has trained 100 teachers across 50 schools in Uttarakhand and Uttar Pradesh to raise awareness and sensitize the teachers towards use of participatory and hands-on learning tools and approaches including games to bring out attitudinal and behavioural change in the school children towards conservation and rejuvenation of the Ganga river. The National Mission for Clean Ganga (NMCG) and German development agency (GIZ) in India are working together on the bilateral cooperation project ‘Support to Ganga Rejuvenation‘ and Schoolnet India is an implementation partner. The initiative will be further integrated into subject curriculum.
This intervention will be carried out in four different phases. In the preliminary stage, a group of teachers will be trained to carry out innovative and interactive teaching methods to integrate the message of Ganga Box effectively in the classroom. In the second phase, the teachers will roll out the Ganga Box in their schools and classrooms and be technically supported and hand-held while they do the roll-out. In the third phase, potential teachers who could act as a facilitator to form the state resource pool will be identified based on the first two phases. These teachers will then be trained as ‘master facilitators’ who would, in turn, train teachers in other schools, thus supporting the implementation of the ‘Ganga Box’. A closeout dissemination workshop will be held with multiple stakeholders to (a) share the experiences and lessons learnt and get a feedback and (b) discuss the plan for taking this forward and need for further support, if any.
Schoolnet India team lead Vagish Jha said, “We believe in the immense potential of young school children to greatly influence their families and friends spreading awareness about the conservation of the river and keeping it clean.”
