Nexus of Good: Driven by motivation

"We retain five per cent of a lecture, 50 per cent of what we see and hear, and 80 per cent of what we experience", said David Sousa in 2011. As a growing child, Venu Nadella — founder of Janyaa Foundation — had a remarkable memory and she had achieved academic success. However, she realised that India's teaching methodology followed rote learning where children scored good marks but were unable to apply their learnings to daily life. The thought of underprivileged children being disinterested in science and math always bothered the software professional. Hailing from a family with agrarian roots, Venu was moved by stories of farmers' struggles that she saw on media and heard from friends/family. When discussing with locals, Venu was surprised at their lack of knowledge on fundamentals like crop storage, the impact of high-interest rates, soil fertility etc. She realised that even a little education on science and math fundamentals would have benefitted them. For a long-term change, it was important to focus on children and empower them with real-life knowledge of math, science and business concepts. This would enable children to help themselves, their parents and their communities, irrespective of the livelihood they took up later.

Upon coming to the United States, Venu was exposed to new teaching techniques that exemplified practical applications of theoretical learning. She realised the power of hands-on learning and wanted to do something to change the way Indian children learn. All this led to the birth of the Janyaa Foundation in 2010 with a small team and a vision to empower globally underserved communities by changing the way education is administered in math and science.

The team initially designed science and math experiments for curriculum-based concepts with "relevance to daily life" using design principles as part of its flagship Janyaa Lab in a Box (JLIB) programme. The JLIB comprises 600+ curriculum-aligned science and math experiments developed by Stanford professors, government school teachers, and STEM experts. These are taught to Janyaa's target beneficiaries — high school children between grades 6-10 — by trained teachers and facilitators in an interactive manner. Hi-touch engagement events namely Janyaa Creative Fair (where children apply their JLIB learning to develop hundreds of science/math models) and Janyaa Scientific Rangoli (where children showcase STEM experiments on school grounds using chalk or rangoli powder) are organised in schools to showcase students' creativity.

Next comes the application of science and math concepts to daily life. For this, Janyaa developed a unique model called the Janyaa Social Innovation Challenge that allows children to apply conceptual learning to develop solutions for solving daily-life problems. Winning entries are implemented in the respective schools or communities through Janyaa Children2Community Solutions initiative with donor support. The Janyaa Nature Lab (JNL) programme was designed to enable children to understand science and math concepts in the context of nature via their school or community garden. JNL has been implemented in Telangana's Kothagudem schools, and was piloted in Hyderabad schools this year.

One of the Janyaa's success stories — the Rechargeable Shaft model, winner of the Janyaa Social Innovation Challenge 2018-19 — was implemented by children in their school in Old Sanathnagar, Hyderabad, helping 750 children in storing and raising their area's water table. The Rainwater Harvesting model — winner of JSIC 2019 — was implemented in ZPHS Kakani School in Andhra Pradesh, benefiting up to 300 children and staff. Currently, 19 JSIC winning models are being implemented in the respective Hyderabad schools with donor support.

As part of a private-public stakeholder model, Janyaa delivers its programmes in low-income government schools, typically attended by children from marginalised rural communities. These schools have a greater need for hands-on learning solutions due to the complex issues of teacher turnover, skills gap, training issues, resources etc. Also, while piloting the programme, Janyaa realised that programme efficacy lay in introducing the government teachers to use hands-on learning tools. Janyaa works in close collaboration with the state government stakeholders like District Education Officer, State Tribal Welfare and Social Welfare Educational Institutions, Zilla Parishad and Kasturba Gandhi Balika Vidyalaya (KGBV) schools.

A 2015 Indian School of Business (ISB) study showed that students who undertake the JLIB learning programme perform 50 per cent better than non-Janyaa students, 94 per cent of the students like teachers showing the experiments, and 92 per cent want to practice the experiments. A 2016 pilot study by ASER (Annual Status of Education Report) found a 52 per cent improvement in the students' performance due to the use of Janyaa's teaching-learning materials.

In the wake of COVID-19 and consequent school closures, Janyaa stepped up to launch its first-ever "Learn from Home" programme in April 2020 — an online adaptation of the Janyaa Lab In a Box programme, targeting 1,126 teachers and 852 public school students in Telangana. Presently, Janyaa is mobilising support to conduct 4-month online bridge experiential learning programmes for high school students to help make up for STEM learning losses.

The National Science Foundation predicts 80 per cent of future jobs will require candidates to have some form of STEM skills. India's 2020 National Education Policy focuses on exploratory and experiential learning, vocational skill-building and competency-based student assessment. STEM is emerging as an essential education component. Janyaa is uniquely positioned to address the systemic STEM education gap in India's middle and high schools with its hands-on learning programmes aimed to empower children and communities. Moving forward, Janyaa plans to scale its programme model at the foundational layer across millions of schools in multiple Indian states with a goal to impact a million underprivileged children by 2025.

Enabling creative problem-solving skills in underprivileged children by applying science and math to their daily lives through experiential learning, Janyaa Foundation presents a great example of Nexus of Good as it has demonstrated that good models of delivering quality education can not only be made to work, but also be scaled through a public-private partnership. Since its inception, Janyaa has implemented its programmes in 912 schools across 14 states in India, impacting 5,00,000 children. There is still a long way to go but there is no doubt that the organisation will travel the distance with the commitment of its team led by a visionary, Venu Nadella.

Views expressed are personal