IBM to help develop girls' digital skills in Arunachal Pradesh

OUR CORRESPONDENT

ITANAGAR: IBM has announced that it will collaborate with the Arunachal Pradesh Government to introduce the IBM STEM for girls' programme in more than 130 secondary and higher secondary schools across 15 districts of the State.

The IBM will collaborate with the State's school education department; the multinational technology corporation's managing director Sandip Patel informed here during a function on Wednesday.

In this effort, more than 13,500 students studying in class VII to X will have exposure to digital fluency, coding skills training and 21st-century skills including life and career skills.

The STEM for girls' programme expansion in the State is a part of IBM's commitment to skilling 30 million people worldwide by 2030.

The curriculum under the initiative would align and supplement the State's efforts toward offering quality education. The initiative is part of a three-year programme between IBM and the State Government, with Quest Alliance and Alombro Mayu Yaku Chi Amey Aroga (AMYAA) as the implementation partners, to further help increase the participation of girl children and women in STEM careers.

AMYAA would hire facilitators to support the school processes and would anchor the advocacy and liaison with district education officials for executing the programme.

Students would be able to access curricula in multiple settings, including via IBM skills build, which provides learners with course work that provides introductions to foundational technologies used in many industries, such as cloud computing and AI.

"We are extremely proud to launch the IBM STEM for girls programme in the State. We believe that the purpose of education is to create a platform for independent thinkers and innovators. The State will continue to focus on improving foundational literacy and numeracy, early childhood care and education, governance and digital education and emphasize on improving vocational and teacher education," State Education Commissioner Padmini Singla said.

"Through the initiative, we are reaching out to students beyond metros to offer a holistic knowledge development program, training in new-age technologies, and help girls make informed career choices with the input of mentors from IBM," Patel said.

"We aim to work in partnership with the Arunachal Pradesh Government to advocate, spread awareness and sensitize the school system, teachers, and educators on inclusive practices for promoting girls in technology," he added.

The programme also aims to build a State resource group comprising teachers and educators in various districts, which would put efforts toward capacity building of teachers and implementing the programme across 130 schools.

"Through the programme we will also empower 650 teachers in intervention schools and enable them to transform into 21st-century educators. The programme will allow teachers to engage and train students on computational thinking, STEM and agency development for girls," Patel said and added that the schools would act as model schools to demonstrate curriculum of coding, STEM and life and career skills training within the classroom curriculum.

He said the initiative focuses on involving teachers in co-creating relevant education materials to progress computational thinking and 21st-century skills development at secondary and higher secondary school levels.

The IBM STEM for girls programme, currently running in 13 States, has successfully engaged with hundreds of thousands of students.

Participating States include Arunachal Pradesh, Karnataka, Andhra Pradesh, Telangana, Haryana, Punjab, Rajasthan, Gujarat, Odisha, Assam, Bihar, Uttarakhand, and Nagaland.

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