In India, Education is still one of the important tools of social transformation. Yet, there are millions of children in rural and underserved areas who do not have access to quality learning. The reasons are many and varied but we need to act on it immediately, consistently and with full commitment.
As Niranjan Hiranandani, MD Hiranandani group says, “We have to have a target, we have to have a mindset, we have to assist that mindset and then we have to monitor it like a war room.” So, we have to monitor the problem of education as a war room only.
Among the various sustainable development goals (SDG), SDG 4 talks about ensuring inclusive and equitable quality education and promoting lifelong learning opportunities for all. The equitable and quality education is not just a fundamental right but a foundation for sustainable development and social progress.
Creating CSR Goals That Focus on Rural Education
One of the effective catalysts to achieve this vision is Corporate social responsibility. If companies’ CSR goals are aligned with educational development, companies can create lasting impact. It will not only empower students but also strengthen the communities to drive sustainable change.
For this, companies must find the local educational gaps, align their CSR strategies to fulfil them and set measurable and long-term objectives to attain sustainable impact instead of one-time interventions.
Some Key Areas of Rural Education Where Companies Can Make a Difference
1. Empowering Schools with Infrastructure
Many rural schools in India do not have proper infrastructure and learning resources. There are desks and chairs to sit on, no blackboards to write on and no books and notebooks to read from. These are the first requirements of any learning process. Companies can bridge this gap by funding educational programmes or partner with education focused NGOs like TrueGiv.
Some of such partnerships have already been very successful. For instance, The Infosys foundation supported education by enhancing infrastructure and provide learning tools to rural schools. Recently, with the partnership of TrueGiv and Ingersoll Rand, many schools in Rajasthan and Delhi were benefitted with furniture, study materials and sports equipment.
2. Building Digital Infrastructure in Schools
When digital learning has become the need of the hour, 57% of Indian schools do not have access to computers and tablets. Companies can help provide preloaded tablets, smart classrooms and digital libraries so that students can learn technology. With smart classrooms, teaching can become interactive, effective and engaging.
3. Providing Teacher Training and Capacity Building
One of the main foundations of quality education isa good teacher. However, due to the lack of teacher training, rural schools lack qualified teachers as present in urban schools. With companies' CSR programs where teachers are trained with modern teaching methods, digital tools and classroom management, teachers will become more efficient. They will be able to deliver lectures in a better way and students can learn concepts with more clarity.
4. Creating Scholarships and Financial Support Systems
There are cases when talented students from rural areas fail to pursue higher education because of financial barriers. CSR funded scholarship programmes can bridge this gap, providing new hope and opportunities to such students.
One of the classic examples of such a CSR programme is Jigyasa: Building Knowledge for Life by Vodafone Idea Limited. The programme, along with empowering teachers, and improving school infrastructure, focus on tackling the limited scholarship awareness through their multilingual scholarship discovery platform learningwithvodafoneidea.in. in this programme, more than 6.64 lakh students have registered for scholarships, of which 25,000 have successfully received it.
5. Focusing on Girl Child Education
Educating girls has multiple benefits as it helps improve the family health, income and social development. However, in rural areas, gender disparity is still a grave issue. Rural families refrain from sending their girl child to school. Sometimes, the issue is financial, and ither times it’s the lack of proper facilities for girls in schools.
Projects like Nanhi Kali, started by Anand Mahindra, Chairman of Mahindra Group or NTPC’s Girl Empowerment Mission (GEM) are some of such programmes that have empowered girl children and help them get safe learning spaces.
Besides, all these companies can also work on encouraging innovation and employability by funding STEM labs, conducting workshops, parent counselling and awareness programmes to involve local communities in sustaining children’s education.
Partnering with NGOs for sustainable impact
To get the desired results out of these CSR initiatives, it is essential for corporations and grassroots NGO to collaborate. NGOs help bring local expertise, understand socio-economic dynamics and set up operational frameworks for the project to scale successfully and sustainably.
Without any collaboration, most CSR initiatives work as one time intervention to fulfil CSR act mandates. NGOs bring implementation expertise and transparency to the projects. Moreover, with their impact assessment reports, it is ensured that CSR initiatives deliver measurable and long-term educational outcomes rather than short-term aid.
TrueGiv is also one such NGO that bridges the gap between corporates and schools and helps channelize CSR funds to the most underserved rural schools through its tech-enabled platform. The team ensures that every initiative is data-backed, verified and transparent from start to finish.
Conclusion
Empowering rural education through CSR initiatives is not just about funds, it’s about building such sustainable ecosystems that can support equity, learning and opportunity. With the right combination of companies’ resources and grassroot experience of NGOs, it is possible to create solutions that last long and transform the communities for the good.
Platforms like TrueGiv wish to create the process seamless by ensuring transparency and measurable impact. This technology driven partnership can help the vision of education for all become a lasting reality.