Abheda Foundation and Oil and Natural Gas Corporation are on a mission to impart quality digital education to the students who need it the most. As part of their collaborative initiative DEPUS (Digital Education Program for Underprivileged Students), they organized a function at Taki Boys’ School, Sealdah on 27th June to present digital tablets to 50 students of 25 Bengali and Hindi-medium schools of Kolkata. The tablets are loaded with applications for learning English developed by Abheda Foundation only. These interesting easy-to-use applications are named Abheda English and English CourseTutor, which are available free on Google Play Store for everybody’s use. The program is actually an awareness campaign so that the underprivileged students take up Digital Education more and more. This will be a one-year program, whereby the students will learn English and Maths, solve innovative puzzles and teach themselves the sayings of Swami Vivekananda. They will be monitored and assessed by the implementer Abheda Foundation periodically, while ONGC will play the role of the sponsor.

Addressing the audience, the Managing Trustee of Abheda Foundation, Mr. Biswajit Mitra said, “A challenge with the prevalent education system is the huge influx of first generation learners, who are riddled with the lack of appropriate teaching-learning material. Another challenge is the dearth of quality teachers and the government’s helplessness to reduce the yawning gap between the number of students and teachers. So the possible solution is Digital Education, which on one side is exciting and interactive and on the other a substitute for a mediocre teacher’.

He elucidated the views, vision, and mission of Abheda Foundation, which is to promote digital education for the underprivileged. Apart from the contents (apps) developed Abheda endeavors to give a scholarship to 150 financially challenged yet meritorious students of Canning, Jalangi and Jhargram. The students are taught English, Maths, computer operations through individual tablets given to them. ONGC has lent its supporting hands to this program also. Abheda has also opened a digital school at the remote location of Jalangi, Murshidabad, where rural students learn life skills such as communicative English, Computer Operations etc., Mr. Mitra intimated.

Then Mr. S. K. Ghoshal, DGM ONGC CSR and Mr. Mrityunjay Dey, Chief Engineer ONGC thanked everybody for being a part of DEPUS and explained how ONGC is committed to supporting such innovative efforts on “Digital India” motivated endeavors.

Then the students received the tablets - along with a cap with Abheda logo on it – from the distinguished guests, which comprised Principals of the schools, ONGC officials and Abheda Foundation Trustees.

And here is The Times of India gives a substantial coverage to this event - TOI on Tablet Award Function in Kolkata on 27th June

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