Despite the tremendous progress in the expansion of access to schooling and school enrollment in India, the learning outcomes of students have not kept pace with the tremendous strides made in improving access and enrollment in schools. Numerous studies like Pratham's Annual Status of Education Reports have highlighted the difficulties that rural Indian students even in grade 5 have in reading grade 1 texts and solving basic numeracy tasks. 

Such a situation inspired the genesis of this present Indo-Japanese ICSSR-JSPS collaborative research project which seeks to develop a game-based learning device for use in classroom contexts to give a boost to reading skills and improve literacy. The research focuses on developing a phonetics based approach to early literacy games and adapting an existing innovative technology (SAKSHAR) with a human-machine interface in order to create a Technology Enhanced Learning (TEL) system that may be suitable in diverse classroom situations. The integration of new education technology in the mainstream curriculum requires a new and critical understanding of the pedagogical principles, organization of the learning process and the competencies which need to be developed in students and teachers. Therefore, the trialling and further development of SAKSHAR is envisioned as a contribution to the emerging field of ‘Smart Pedagogy’.  The device will be trialed in three districts of Rajasthan: Jodhpur, Udaipur and Baran.

History 

This project takes forward the results of an earlier Indo-Japanese collaboration btween research teams at IIT Delhi and IPS Waseda University in the period 2013-2017, which led to the development of the original prototype of the SAKSHAR device (a gesture-based interactive device which can be deployed in classroom contexts). Its name ‘Sakshar’ means ‘Literacy’ in the Hindi language.  With the ICSSR-JSPS Bilateral Research Grant awarded for the period from 2023-2025, further development of the game and technical development of the game set-up have been proceeding. In December 2023, a trial of the new game was piloted at KV-IIT Jodhpur.  A bilateral research exchange visit was undertaken to IPS Waseda University in December 2023 and the Japanese research team will be visiting India in 2024. A demonstration of the game prototype was showcased at IITJ's Industry Day, February 2-3, 2024.