Reducing education poverty in India
To help underprivileged youths in India’s urban slums break the poverty trap, Ericsson launched a bespoke e-learning program to teach them new skills and share job opportunities. The program provides training in English, IT, retail, basic management and more.
Challenge
Many under privileged children in India cannot pursue full time formal education due to lack of financial support and the immediate need of employment to support their families.
Solution
We developed a four-month bespoke e-learning program to train children in computer basics, personality development, retail and management skills, financial literacy, spoken and written English, and helped them secure employment opportunities.
Impact
To date the project – called the Smile Twin E-learning program – has launched 45 Connect to Learn centers across Delhi NCR, Bengaluru, Chennai, Kolkata and Pune. The program has trained over 13,000 children (of which around 50 percent are women) and 5,500 of them have been placed in the service, retail and business outsourcing sectors.
More facts and reading
The STeP project was created with clear objectives and outcomes for Ericsson’s local communities in mind, and all 45 centers can be found in the urban slums of cities where Ericsson operates. STeP promotes employment by giving students who complete the course work experience placements. For many graduates, the program provided them with their first job and the opportunity to be financially independent – breaking the opportunity deficit.
Since 2019, the program has included a dedicated financial literacy training module to equip youths with the skills they need to manage their personal finances effectively. We successfully integrated Ericsson’s global education initiative – Connect to Learn – with STeP in 2018, where the Ericsson content development team played a vital role in the digitization of STeP training modules. As a result, the program immensely benefitted from the integration of digital and personalized learning opportunities especially in the English speaking and ICT Curriculum. By using our technology and expertise, we were able to introduce innovation in program delivery and positively impact the program outcomes.
The outcomes of this project include higher employability skills, enhanced self-esteem and confidence levels, and helping local youths contribute to society.
Supporting the Sustainable Development Goals
The highlighted Sustainable Development Goals are included in the project.