Case studies
‘Tech on Wheels’ is designed to inspire students to explore their passion for science, discovery, invention and innovation in a digitally connected wo...
Tech on Wheels
Night Schools’ address a critical gap in the Indian education system. Many children, especially from economically disadvantaged sections of society, drop out of school because they repeatedly fail their exams, need to find employment to contribute to the household income or need to baby sit younger siblings so that their mothers can go out and work. ‘Night Schools’, aided by the state, run in partnership between private trusts and the municipal corporations, are expected to serve this population, a gap which even public schools which are free or deeply subsidised, are unable to address.
In existence since 1850, ‘Night Schools’ however, have been severely neglected over time. In 2008, Nikita Ketkar established Masoom, an NGO that addresses the need for infrastructure and quality education in night schools. Masoom was registered as a Charitable Trust with the aim to empower, strengthen and transform ‘Night Schools’, by improving infrastructure, enhancing teaching methods and Government advocacy that will help build a stronger academic foundation, resulting in wider opportunities for the students.
In early 2016, in partnership with Level Up Village, a social impact company, based in the US, Masoom piloted the concept of a mobile bus to deliver science & technology curricula called ‘Tech on Wheels’. The idea was to reach out to 1000 existing students (400 night school & 600 day school); enroll an additional 300 out-of-school students into night schools and conduct student leadership programs with over 60 students in each batch.
‘Tech on Wheels’ while solving the twin problems of no space and limited digital infrastructure, is designed to inspire students to explore their passion for science, discovery, invention and innovation in a digitally connected world. The objective of this project is to change the way students see and understand STEM subjects and to empower students by collaborating across cultures.
bp worked with Masoom to deliver the second ‘Tech on Wheels’ bus, which houses a computer lab that can accommodate as many as 28 students, two trainers, and a library section with reference material. The bus travels from school to school between 6.30pm to 9.30pm, with 3-hour sessions per day; on board, students use the facility to learn computer skills, build some employable skills, and learn to use digital research material on the web. ‘Tech on Wheels’ reaches almost 400 students across selected night schools and plays a role in enrolling at least 300 out-of-school children.
The bp ‘Tech on Wheels’ bus was launched on 16 June 2017 in Mumbai, India.
Catching them young for Safer Mobility
“Accidents are killing more people in India than terrorism or natural disasters and yet we never talk about them”, observed the Minister for Road Transport and Highways, in 2016.
Road accidents are the leading cause of death among people between the ages of 15 and 29 years and cost governments between 3% and 5% of the GDP. Road accidents disproportionately target the economically active. Families are often driven deeper into poverty by the loss of a bread winner or by expenses of prolonged medical care or the added burden of caring for a family member who is disabled from a road traffic injury. At a national level these costs hurt, imposing a significant burden on health, insurance and legal systems. Despite this massive and, largely preventable, human and economic toll, investment in addressing this global issue has been insufficient.
Safety is a core value for bp and drives how we do business. Keeping people safe on the road is a priority. Leveraging the work done globally and closer to home by Castrol in the space of safer mobility, bp is committed to supporting India to meet the Brasilia Declaration on Road Safety commitment of halving deaths in road accidents by 2022. The SCCRS vision if well executed has the potential to have a sustainable and high impact on the efforts toward safer mobility solutions for India.
bp India partnered with Synergie (the Synergie Institute of Trade, Commerce and Industry), to develop a comprehensive outcome-oriented road safety course for primary, secondary and senior secondary school children across India. Its eight interactive modules are tailored for each age group and provide instructors with student workbooks, teacher guides, infographics and videos, facilitating the movement from awareness to change in behaviour. This approach is underpinned by considerable research which tries to answer the question: why doesn’t intent convert to action?
Emphasizing safety in vocational training
In India, almost 75,000 people die every year in factory accidents. The number of people injured is much higher at 700,000. Increased mechanization, electrification and process sophistication have made industrial jobs more complex and a lot more dangerous. Accidents have led to losses of production time equivalent to millions of man and machine hours. Ignoring the importance of safety often leads to either the individuals harming themselves or others or causing damage to the equipment resulting in downtime and loss.
The Government of India offers technical training through Industrial Training Institutes (ITI) and through the National Skill Development Corporation’s (NSDC) training institutes. These institutes are the largest feeders of skilled manpower into the secondary sector (industrial and manufacturing sector), skilling more than five million students in a year. Ensuring that the country’s skilled workforce is trained to see safety as a priority, is critical for a long lasting and profitable energy relationship in the country.
bp partnered with the International Centre for Entrepreneurship and Career Development (ICECD) to run a pilot and capacity building program in collaboration with the Government of Gujarat - developing a revised and industry-relevant safety module which would be integrated into the curriculum in the Industrial Training Institutes (ITIs). A capacity building program was then run across Gujarat, a state which has 500 of the 12,000 ITIs in India. The National Skill Development Corporation (NSDC) imparts training to enable employability in young people through 8503 training centres, 443 training partner organizations across 40 sectors.
bp, in partnership with Social Empowerment and Economic Development Society (SEEDS) & ILFS Skills, incorporated safety skills modules into vocational training programs in manufacturing, engineering and construction sectors of the National Skill Development Corporation (NSDC). A total of 13,000 students in 11 states received this training over the last few years. Additionally, our partners created a cadre of Master Trainers within the Capital Goods Sector Skill Council of the NSDC, who will sustain this safety skilling initiative in the future.
