Tata Interactive Systems (TIS) was recently honored with the eMaharashtra 2012 Award for the best multimedia content for K12 (jury’s choice). The award and certificate for best multimedia content for K12 were presented by Fauzia T Khan, State Minister, General Administration, Public Health and Family Welfare, School Education, Cultural Affairs, Information and Publicity, Government of Maharashtra.
Sanjaya Sharma, Chief Executive Officer, Tata Interactive Systems, said, “For India to truly hold its own on the global stage, there is a need to improve the quality of education imparted to children from under-privileged backgrounds, and also to improve their ability to communicate in English. India’s challenge is not just unemployment but also unemployability of a vast majority of the people of our country who are unable to communicate proficiently in English.”
Tata Interactive Systems (TIS) along with Bombay Community Public Trust (BCPT) and NGO Muktangan collaborated to provide high-quality standardized interactive English teaching aids based on the government prescribed curriculum to help children in state-run and private vernacular medium schools overcome the English barrier and become employable.
Tata Interactive Systems (TIS) was responsible for designing and developing the DVDs. Muktangan assisted in guiding the teaching methodology used in DVDs and providing a platform for user-testing. Bombay Community Public Trust (BCPT) helped in fund raising, administration, accounting and project coordination. Apart from these three, Tech Mahindra Foundation also provided financial assistance and NGO Learning Space Foundation helped with distribution of the DVDs in municipal and village schools across Maharashtra. The DVDs have already reached over 75 schools across the state.
TIS took this initiative to improve the quality of education imparted to children from under-privileged backgrounds, and also to improve their ability to communicate in English. The project aims to build English communication skills in under privileged children and overcome inadequacies of English teachers in non-English medium schools. This was achieved by prompting existing teachers to improve their skills and imparting standardized language skills to students through creative electronic learning content with an engaging instructional design approach. It was identified that a strong foundation in English is best built at an early stage—therefore the defined target age-group was Std 1 to 4.