Samsung Smart School to take digital education to less-privileged students in remotest parts of India with smart classes at 80 more Navodaya schools

Jawahar Navodaya Vidyalaya, Kupwara

Ajay Kumar Agarwal, principal of Jawahar Navodaya Vidyalaya (JNV) at Kupwara in Jammu & Kashmir is super excited. His school is one of the 80 JNVs where Samsung is setting up modern smart classes, as part of its Samsung Smart School initiative.

“A smart class at our school will definitely make education fun. We aim for high quality education and academic success. It will not take away traditional teaching but rather add colours to it. Smart class helps students understand concepts better and not to forget improve reading and writing skills,” says Agarwal.

“It will enable students to have access to online resources and different kinds of learning material available online. Also, we cannot ignore the fact that visual learning is more effective and easy to retain,” he says.

His school in Kupwara is 100 km away from Srinagar. Equipment for the school is being delivered after a long journey from Samsung’s warehouses in far off places.

An aerial view of Jawahar Navodaya Vidyalaya, Kupwara

The 80 JNVs where the smart classes are being set up by Samsung are in some of the remotest parts of the country – like Dahod in Gujarat, Sukma in Chhattisgarh, Darjeeling in West Bengal, Baksa in Assam – and will help provide digital education to less-privileged students in these areas.

For Samsung, this reaffirms its vision of Powering Digital India by empowering the next generation of young India with its impactful innovations.

Over the years, smart classes set up by Samsung at JNVs across the country, as part of the Samsung Smart School initiative, have helped teach students subjects such as Mathematics, Science, English and Social Science in an engaging and visually appealing manner, ensuring they learn better and improve retention.

Teachers and school principals at JNV schools have provided feedback that smart classes set up by Samsung have increased student participation, familiarity and comfort with technology such as smartboards, tablets and printers.

Additionally, teachers have also said that students learn complicated concepts more easily and that the digitally interactive environment encourages shy or hesitant students to participate better in classroom discussions.

Amal Karmaker, principal of Jawahar Navodaya Vidyalaya at South 24 Parganas-II in West Bengal says the smart class set up by Samsung at his school has not only been effective for academic development of students but for their holistic development as well.

“It has taken teacher-student interaction to a level that would not have been possible in a traditional classroom. Students get a hands-on understanding of concepts that are empowered by audio-visual learning,” he explains.

Karmaker has also seen the smart class improve visualization and creativity of students as they are much more attentive in this classroom as compared to traditional ones.

The first smart class by Samsung, as part of the Samsung Smart School initiative, was established in 2013 in association with Navodaya Vidyalaya Samiti and the program has so far benefitted over 4.3 lakh students in the country. An additional 50,000 students will benefit from the new smart classes being set up. The program will also continue to support training of teachers. So far, over 8,000 teachers have been trained on how to use interactive technology to teach effectively, improving the quality of teaching and building capacity at JNV schools.

JNV schools are run by the Ministry of Education, Government of India to make modern education available to talented children from rural India. There are currently 661 JNV schools in the country.

With smart classes at 80 more JNVs, the Samsung Smart School initiative will be available at 625 JNV schools and 10 Navodaya Leadership Institutes in 835 classrooms across the country, impacting close to 5 lakh students.

Every smart class set up by Samsung is equipped with an interactive Samsung Flip, Samsung tablets, a printer, a server, power backup and digital learning content.

Gopal Singh Tomar, principal of Jawahar Navodaya Vidyalaya at Dungrin, Hamirpur in Himachal Pradesh his school that is located in a rural area has come at par with other public school set up in urban areas of the region because of the technology loaded smart class set up by Samsung.

“With the smart class by Samsung, our students are able to do ample practice for top online competitive examinations like IIT JEE, NEET etc. Now they are also able to participate in various online Olympiads, practice tests and online quizzes organized by Government of India. This wasn’t as easy with the regular classroom practices,” Tomar said.

“Samsung Smart School has brought digital literacy to rural India.”