Education gaps in educational systems all over the world have been an issue for decades, the COVID-19 pandemic only through those issues into even sharper relief. Now that schools are turning to remote learning styles, many students, especially in poor home environments, are finding learning difficult and even inaccessible.

One of the current PeaceX interns, Kartikeya Uniyal, is a co-founder of a startup called Access Labs, that aims to provide various educational topics missing from mainstream secondary education systems in India.

What is Access Labs?

Access Labs is an ed-tech platform that provides an alternative learning path to students in India for building socio-cultural awareness, technological skills and leadership qualities. Their multidimensional approach of implementation aims to reach as many students as possible through the effective use of technology and collaboration with grassroot organizations.

Founded by college students, Kartikeya Uniyal (Georgetown University in Qatar) and Stuti Tanotra (University of Delhi),  Access Labs is an upcoming educational service that aims to make education accessible, attainable and enforceable- in order to make learning more engaging and outcome oriented- specifically for students grades 8-12 in India. This startup educational service strives towards making a decentralized, democratized, self-designed and accessible learning platform to students in subjects that are accessible only to certain students and are largely ignored by the Indian education system. 

The mandated curriculum for Indian schools is limited to conventional subjects that are rarely modified to suit the current times. Other skills like critical thinking, problem solving, social and emotional learning, that are essential for the holistic development of students are ignored by the education system and are only provided by private schools to a set of students who can afford it. The public education system in India sticks to the predominated curriculum and does not create opportunities for students to gain new skills and apply them to create value. 

Access Labs will be launching their service on November 11, 2020, National Education Day in India, with the aim of reaching out to as many students as possible through an online and offline distribution model. They aim to introduce programs on topics such as identity, active citizenship, sustainability, entrepreneurship, value creation, justice and rights, health and wellness, data science, ICT, etc. Their implementation process is designed in consideration of the digital divide in India. They will be making all their courses available on an online platform, as well as facilitate operations on text-messaging services for those without an internet connection and in-person implementation in partnership with grassroots organizations.  They will use a unique opt-in payment mechanism that takes into account a student’s ability to pay.  To make the service available to as many students as possible, they are looking towards collaborating with the government.

How did Access Labs come to be?

In late 2019, Access Labs co-founders Kartikeya and Stuti Tanotra were selected to be a part of the Clinton Global Initiative University Class of 2020 for their Commitment to Action — specifically focusing on social impact projects that address pressing challenges on campus or in local and global communities — which initially aimed to provide policy training to local governments in India. 

Uniyal and Tanotra were working towards implementing their initial project during the summer of 2020 before the impact of COVID-19. Due to the pandemic, they had no option but to put their project on hold as there were many logistical and technical challenges to an online implementation of the program. During COVID-19 and witnessing the situation of education in India, especially the digital divide, Uniyal and Tanotra came up with the idea of an educational service called Access Labs. 

Over the course of 2 months, the co-founders identified how certain imperative skills are often ignored by Indian schools, as their focus is solely to prepare students for exams, not life. Schools stick to a conventional form of instruction and education due to the expansive nature of the syllabus which is only suited for rote learning. This constraint limits students from gaining critical thinking skills and building their socio-cultural awareness. Being familiar with the 100 year gap in global education, Uniyal and Tanotra concluded that if the problem of digital skill building and critical thinking is left unaddressed, the gap between students would grow larger and could even become irreversible. That’s when they decided to create a service that will provide students with all the necessary resources to carve a path towards self sufficiency and become independent leaders. 

As college students, Uniyal and Tanotra knew they did not have the experience necessary to be professional facilitators of their courses. In order to take their startup to the next level, the co-founders decided to reach out to partner with local organizations working in their subject areas. These partnerships will be mutually beneficial in producing adequate content for students and also creating valuable courses that can be shared on a broader scale.

What are the future goals for Access Labs?

The future goals and aspirations of Access Labs are to make more skills and subjects accessible to their target audience. Eventually, they are also looking to create opportunities for their innovative participants to generate products and create sustainable enterprises. Their goal is to stay true to their ultimate purpose of providing equal access, opportunities and creating a level playing field for all students through education, regardless of their difference boundaries. 

The COVID-19 pandemic has shown us how education will be delivered remotely in the future, and the Access Labs co-founders feel that this approach is very exclusive and caters only to those with access to resources. With their underlying goal of reaching as many students as possible, they aim to make distance learning a reality for students, regardless of their access to resources. Their initiative also aims to prepare students for the advent of a knowledge economy in the future by making them problem solvers, equipped with the necessary skills. They hope to create a model of delivery for education that can reach out to all parts of the world and make participants self-reliant and independent.

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