The COVID-19 pandemic has humanity facing one of the toughest crises in recent history. Countrywide lockdown confined children to limited spaces and locations. To keep children engaged and sustain hope in their hearts, Vedanta Group companies, Cairn Oil & Gas and Hindustan Zinc Limited (HZL), have come forward and initiated several programs in the field of education and learning. Through their initiatives in Rajasthan, both the companies are encouraging kids to become leaders of change and continue their journey of learning amidst the crisis, inspiring the world to live each day to the fullest.

Sunil Duggal, Chief Executive Officer, Vedanta Ltd., said, “Vedanta is committed to transforming the lives of children at the grassroots level, and providing them quality education, especially during these challenging times, is an important part of this vision. Cairn Oil & Gas and Hindustan Zinc have taken up innovative and technology-backed initiatives to ensure that students adapt to new ways of learning and children are not made to suffer.”

Some of the flagship projects under the aegis of Vedanta Group companies are:

1. Project e-Kaksha – a unique digital education initiative for rural children studying in Rajasthan by Cairn Oil & Gas

E-Kaksha is aimed at imparting education through digital platforms to the students of class 6th to 12th in partnership with Department of Education, Government of Rajasthan for all subjects with special attention on key subjects like Maths, Physics Chemistry, Biology, English, etc. Under this project, over 300+ videos have been developed so far, as the initiative aims to benefit more than 1.7 crore students in over 65,000+ government schools across 33 districts in the state. The e-content will be delivered through government’s digital mediums like Shiksha Vani, Shiksha Darshan (Doordarshan Rajasthan), Smile Program as well as ICT lab and smart classrooms in every government schools along with official YouTube channel of RBSE e-kaksha. Ujjwal project, which was focused on providing remedial and bridge classes to weaker and out of school students in 20 government schools in Barmer, Rajasthan, has continued to provide education at their hamlets and clusters post lockdown.

Speaking about the project, Govind Singh Dotasra, Education Minister, Rajasthan said, “The closure of government schools due to the COVID-19 pandemic has disrupted children’s education. Rajasthan government has, under the leadership of Ashok Gehlot, CM, Rajasthan, strived to make education accessible to the children of Rajasthan. It delights me to announce that the leaders at our education department have worked enthusiastically to provide education to children stuck at home at such difficult times and signed MoU with Vedanta & Mission Gyan.” Mr. Anshdeep, IAS, District Collector, Pali, appreciated the e-Kaksha project.

2. Ghar Baithe Gyan Ganga – Education Project by Cairn Oil & Gas

Launched in Gujarat to improve the quality of education in schools, this project set-up smart classes and introduced innovative teaching methods for experiential learning. So far, the education project has catered to 1700+ children by providing them quality education and learning.

3. Shiksha Sambal by HZL

The Shiksha Sambal project is aimed at quality teaching of the key subjects like Science, Maths and English (SEM). The project places additional teachers into schools and builds a strong conceptual foundation among students using innovative learning techniques & activities such as group learning, worksheets, learning camps, science fairs, etc. The project has benefitted 64 government schools and more than 7,300 students of class 9^th to 12^th. During this pandemic, the project team connected with students through online platforms and home visits to keep the learning going.

4. Mindpsark by HZL

Mindspark Learning Lab is a personalised adaptive learning program which provides customized and adaptive cloud-based learning solution to strengthen language and Mathematics learning for classes 1 to 8. Currently, the program is reaching out to 38 government schools benefiting more than 6000 students.

5. Unchi Udaan by HZL

Hindustan Zinc’s ‘Unchi Udaan’, an educational Excellence initiative is built on the foundation of Shiksha Sambal and aims to identify young meritorious students from Govt. schools in communities around the company’s operational areas and mentoring them to enter engineering institutions of national repute. Each year, the company selects 25-30 students from rural areas of its operational districts, through rigorous selection process conducted across 6 districts – Udaipur, Bhilwara, Chittorgarh, Rajsamand & Ajmer from Rajasthan and Pantnagar from Uttarakhand and provide free coaching to appear and get through the IITs and other prestigious Engineering Colleges. The project provides residential schooling and coaching support to select group of students. The project is being implemented by Vidya Bhawan & Resonance Edu ventures. At present four batches from class 9 till 12 are running in Unchi Udaan program & the project is benefitting 134 students.