Google India announces $1 million grant for enhancing quality of virtual education

Google on Monday hosted the sixth edition of its annual Google for India event. The event that was held virtually for the first due to the pandemic saw the company announcing a $10 million ( ₹75,000 crore approximately) Google for India Digitisation Fund that would focus on advancing India’s digitisation over the coming 5-7 years. In addition to this, the company has also announced a $1 million grant for supporting virtual education in India.

During the event, Google’s head of Marketing in India and Southeast Asia, Sapna Chadha said that the company’s philanthropic arm, Google.org was providing a grant of $1 million to Kaivalya Education Foundation (KEF). Using these funds, KEF would work with the Central Square Foundation and TeacherApp to train 700,000 teachers across the country to deliver virtual education for vulnerable students so that they can continue learning at home.

“We are announcing a new grant of $1 USD through our Global Distance Learning Fund. Through this grant, Kaivalya Education Foundation will empower over 7,00,000 teachers over the next one year to deliver virtual education for students to continue learning at home,” the Google executive said in a statement.

She also said that this fund will also be used to reach the children in the families that don’t have access to the internet or a smartphone. In such cases, KEF would use TV and radio to reach these children.

In addition to this the company launched its Teach From Home initiative as a part of which Google will be providing a virtual hub to teachers in eight local languages to help students learn virtually. This tool will make use of Google Classroom and Google Meet for the same.