Mumbai : Affordable English medium schools are bracing for challenging times amidst lockdown as they need to integrate technology and train teachers to provide continuity in learning to students. To support these affordable schools in their efforts to provide quality learning to students despite these challenges, LEAD School, which is running India’s largest online school – LEAD School@Home program, has announced free licenses for 200 budget private schools across the country.
Under the Save our Schools initiative, the LEAD School@Home online program will be provided free to qualifying schools until the time schools reopen physically. The qualifying schools will be provided support to run the program including online infrastructure as well as the required training to their teachers. These schools can be affiliated to CBSE board or state boards.
Budget private schools typically collect annual fee in the range of Rs.18,000 to Rs.50,000. Coupled with staff salary and reorganisation of school infrastructure right from classroom seating to public transport, such schools across India are struggling to stay afloat especially with reduced or no fee.
Sumeet Mehta, Cofounder and CEO, LEAD School said, “Our children are losing out on valuable learning time while schools are trying to cope up amidst the global health crisis. Each month of lost learning can create many months of learning gap amongst children. We will support our schools with high quality online school that students can attend from the safety of their homes. The education system rests on pillars of schools principals, teachers, parents and students and this is just our small contribution towards supporting the system.”
Only limited licenses are available in each state. Schools can apply by filling up a form wherein details such as number of students, affiliated Board, fee range, existing academic solution etc. have to be provided. Further to receiving the requisite information, LEAD School will verify the entries and decide upon offering the scholarship to qualifying schools.
In a first-of-its-kind initiative, the LEAD School@Home programme is not just supplementary course but students get a true @Home experience of attending school. All classes are based on National Curriculum Framework. With LEAD School@Home, students attend classes through their parents’ phone or computer. Till date, the programme has received over 18 million class views. Students from Class 1 to Class 9 can attend these classes. Even pre-primary parents can avail LEAD School@Home to keep their toddlers engaged.
