Ladakh Digi Yountan - Tablet in every Hamlet

The Covid Pandemic has shut schools down world-wide and while schools everywhere have moved to Digital Learning, a majority of the children of Ladakh have been unable to reap the benefits of this opportunity, simply because of where they live. Over 60% of the hamlets of Ladakh do not have mobile connectivity, and a majority of them do not have continuous electricity. Many homes still do not have even radio or T.V sets, leave alone a smart phone in the family. Today, with hostels and dormitories in cities being closed, thousands of children who have migrated to the cities for education have also gone back to their villages, leaving many children out of the reach of Digital Education. 

In such a scenario, the Ladakh Govt. launched the “Tablet in Every Hamlet” Program, also called Ladakh Digi Yountan locally, a unique Offline Digital Learning program to take the power of Digital Education even to children living in remote, inaccessible villages, most of which have neither continuous electricity nor mobile connectivity, ensuring that they have the opportunity to learn even during lockdown. The Ladakh Digi Yountan program was conceptualized with the help of 17000 ft Foundation, a Non Profit that has been working over the past 8 years in Ladakh to improve education and drive development into remote villages. Over the past two years, 17000ft has developed and implemented a unique Solar Powered Offline Digital Learning solution called the DigiLab, designed exclusively for remote, off-grid regions, which is now active in 105 schools across Leh and Kargil districts of Ladakh. The Tablet in Every Hamlet program is an extension of this DigiLab Program which takes the learning home to children, under which, children from grades 4 to 8 across 100+ villages of Ladakh are being issued tablets from their school DigiLabs to be taken home and from which they can learn. 

Children from remote villages come to the school once to be issued the tablets by their teachers who sanitize the tablets and build a schedule for their children and set lesson plans for each week. Teachers take turns to stay in the villages and monitor student learning through a specially designed App and Monitoring Dashboard, available through the presence of a Solar Powered local server present in the school. The Program assumes neither the presence of electricity nor internet connectivity, requiring children to only charge the tablet at home and learn, while the Headmaster maintains student data and performance through a local internet maintained by the server. 

The Program was launched by Shri Konchok Stanzin, Hon’ble Executive Councilor, Education, LAHDC, Leh on the 30th of July and was carried over to Kargil District two weeks later. Over 900 tablets are today being issued to children across 100+ remote villages of Ladakh for children to learn during lockdown, something that was never thought possible in an area known for its challenging terrain, harsh temperatures and lack of basic infrastructure.