Education
“Education is the most powerful weapon which you can use to change the world” – Nelson Mandela
Oraayam Foundation has identified many themes to assist the marginalized people globally, with education as the top priority. Education is the key to unlock everything in our world today. Advancement in Medicine, Technology, Agriculture and every other discipline would only be possible through education. Though the future of the education is unpredictable, changes should be made for the better for the learner. Now, the global trend is using best practices in education with the help of modern technologies.
First of all, the foundation has plans to improve the quality of education at the school level among Tamil speaking people of Sri Lanka. Before Covid-19, the standard of education has been deteriorating at an alarming rate as Tamils were affected by the prolonged war. It has fallen to almost unrecoverable level after the impact of Covid-19.
In this venture, the newly formed Oraayam’s subcommittee for E-learning has adopted a strategy of intervention in the schools. This intervention is a small-scale online teaching of the most needed subjects – Mathematics and Science. On April 21st 2020, we started teaching Mathematics and Science via online to Year 11 students of Mallavi Girls Hostel on a volunteer basis. Later, students from Sivanarul Illam, Thilakavathiyar Illam and Vanni Vidyalam joined these 90-minute classes which are conducted through ZOOM on each Tuesday and Thursday.
Normally E-learning is used in higher education and corporate and occupational training. Technological innovations have led to the development of interactive new teaching methods that can be implemented in lower classrooms as well. Mathematics and Science teaching needs educator- learner interaction specially in lower grades. E-learning subcommittee is glad to inform that all the zoom classes are interactive.
E-learning subcommittee would like to extend its services to other grades and other curriculum activities beyond Sri Lanka. Instruction may end in the ZOOM classroom but education ends only with life.
In the future, we have plans to implement the following projects* to boost the academic results in rural areas.
- Battiwest Zone School Project
- Trincomalee Zone School Project
- Malayakam School Project
- Whole school holistic project
- Award system
- E-learning for South Africa
* Details of the projects will be published soon.