None of the 55 English medium government schools in Pune go beyond Grade VII. With students not being able to afford private schools, this leads to a huge dropout and gives the poorest students of the city virtually no chance at attending college or building a career. As a solution to this problem, iTeach has been running eight free and high-quality secondary schools in a PPP model, ensuring all students finish Grade X strong. As a follow-up, iTeach’s student alumni wing supports these students to complete college, and start off with sustainable employment and lift their families out of poverty. Founded with one school in 2015, iTeach now runs eight schools and wishes to close this secondary access gap entirely by 2030 through a community of 25 transformational schools.
Response to COVID
In the first week of April, all 250 schools across Pune closed down with learning coming to a halt. High-income private schools were able to resume teaching through the various resources available to them, however, students from government schools didn’t have these facilities. In order to ensure students from Government schools do not miss out on learning – iTeach Schools trained its staff and conducted online schools for its students, quickly realizing the importance of the classes for its students.
With the pandemic hitting Pune severely, schools are not expected to open till September and thus there is an urgent need to ensure all of Pune students receive excellent education irrespective of their economic status. Unfortunately, while iTeach started its schools on June 15, 45% of its students didn’t have access to a device to access the learning conducted by its expert teachers. The schools have also conducted multiple sessions to train government teachers and are currently working with NGOs to multiply the impact.
iTeach Schools know that #EducationCantWait and are requesting for your support to ensure they can reach and create an impact for all.
Donate your old devices (laptops, smartphones, tablets) by sharing the details of the device, name, phone number and pickup address to Luv Kumar @ +91-88002 95185 or educationcantwait@