Children's LoveCastles Trust


CLT India is an Indian non-profit, non-government organisation based in Jakkur, Bengaluru. It was founded in 1997 by Bhagya Rangarchar. It aims to provide education using technology to the under-served communities and its solutions serve the base of the pyramid.
It operates an inclusive, low-cost, seamless e-learning delivery model. This model has been implemented in government schools across Karnataka, Rajasthan, Maharashtra, Andhra Pradesh, among other states in India. Its mission is to use technology to create, enhance and monitor the delivery of grass-roots level education in an affordable, scalable and modular manner.
CLT India is working towards strengthening the existing curriculum of government schools with a network of support for pedagogy, technology, infrastructure and mentoring programs through collaborations. This is aimed at inspiring its beneficiaries to get access to tools to become lifelong learners through digital intervention.
CLT India is a certified GuideStar Gold level participant. In an impact assessment study by Christ, Bangalore, it was found that 83% schools which were a part of the CLT India’s e-Shala program reported increased enrollments and 72% schools reported reduction in dropouts from their academic course. It was chosen as a Dasra fellow for their Research Publication in partnership with USAID as one of the few change makers that are making a difference in the way girls are impacted in secondary schools. Having scaled up the low cost technology model, CLT's e-Patashale content runs in over 12,000 classrooms in India today.

Key Intervention

CLT India addresses some of the challenges in the rural school education system of India like shortage of teachers with subject expertise, student disengagement and lack of quality learning resources. By giving equal learning opportunities for girls and boys with quality e-learning resources for STEM education, it is hoping to bridge many gaps in the system, including the gender gap and digital divide.

e-Patashale

e-Patashale is a low-cost digital content repository based on the national curriculum adopted by state board schools in India, facilitating improved learning outcomes for government-run school beneficiaries. The main objective of this project was to devise low-cost solutions for intervention programs that are modifiable, easy to replicate and scale. It helped build a network of Master Teachers to create curriculum-aligned, digital content repositories for K-12; leverage technology for giving access to modern pedagogy and teaching practices.

CLT Resource Centre acts as a hub where pedagogy experts gather and develop educational content. CLT India has been engaging in sourcing qualified teachers and transforming their expertise to low-cost digital education content that is inclusive, scalable and replicable. The content is created by many qualified teachers in urban cities and passed on to in-house developers to develop into course material, transferring the expertise of qualified teachers to rural government schools.

It is now an extensive library of teaching resources for Mathematics, Science and English Grammar courseware for grades 5 to 10. It features interactive multimedia content like videos, slides and PDFs. In addition to notes, it also offers assessments based on the Continuous and Comprehensive Evaluation. It is currently available in English, Hindi and Kannada. e-Patashale follows the national curriculum closely and is approved and recommended by the State Departments of Education. It is currently available on Windows and Android devices, including PCs, tablets and mobile smartphones. It can be accessed in both non-connectivity environment and online environment as courseware videos and ebooks.
A free teacher training mobile app & student learning app for classes 5-10 are available on Google’s Android Playstore. Jigi is a teacher training application, consisting of a repository of STEM teaching resources. It’s features include teaching points, lesson plans, discussion points, cognitive ability, and CCE. Jigi jigi is a student app with educational content like interactive videos and PDF for multiple subjects. The content on this app is approved by and mapped to the state syllabus. It also features assessments and lesson videos as per NCERT curriculum.

Other Programs

The organization began its digital education program in 2006 when it started creating educational content for government schools. Prior to this, it was involved in providing mid-day meals to various government schools in Bangalore and had also started a food-bank programme. However, these programs were later scrapped after the Karnataka State Government implemented the midday meal scheme in Jakkur.

Intel Computer Clubhouse

In addition to during-school intervention programmes, CLT India also provides after-school intervention. CLT India was selected to host the second Intel Computer Clubhouse in 2002. It is an after-school center for 750 children, ages 9–19, from Jakkur village in Bangalore. Under the guidance of adult mentors, children develop technology skills and create digital projects. Every two years, three children from the clubhouse go to Boston to take part in the Teen Summit, a week-long international youth leadership programme. CLT India is also part of the Adobe Youth Voices program since 2008.

E-Learning

With the help of its digital education content repository e-Patashale, the organization has catered to the growing needs of rural education in India. The organization helped set up a total of 300 E-learning classrooms between 2007 and 2010.

Distance Education

CLT also partnered with Cisco for live distance-teaching in 2011. CLT provided the education content which was delivered remotely using the Cisco® Education Enabled Development platform. The program was implemented in 42 classrooms over the period of 2011 to 2014.

Awards and recognition