The objective of Vidya Helpline (Education Helpline) project is to provided excellent guidance and support to pursue the career of the students choice. Currently this service is offered in two ways.
1. A toll free tele counseling (1800 425 2426) service with a key objective of providing authentic and complete information to students in the categories of careers, courses, vocational and job oriented courses, open education, scholarships etc., Since inception in May 2010, 25,083 queries have been addressed majorly from one district of Andhra Pradesh state with the help of a single tele phone line. The current plan is to expand the services to multiple districts by incorporating 5 lines and start a pilot project in Rajasthan state.

2. Career counseling workshops - The objective is to assist the rural underprivileged students by setting a goal in them and exposing them to various career opportunities. So far about 30,000 students have been guided through this project. The scope of this project is to provide these services across the state of Andhra Pradesh

Problem

Students especially from rural areas face a key challenge of ‘lack of information, guidance and monitory support on demand’ for choosing/continuing his/her career path. There is also very limited/no information about various scholarship options, universities, educational loans, vocational education etc., The students especially from rural areas are dependent on middlemen who have some vague information and decide their careers based on that. In a survey conducted by the Nirmaan organization from a sample of 200 '10th class rural students', it is alarming to know that 72% of the people just know about 4 careers ie., Doctor, Engineer, Police and Teacher. However there are lot of opportunities which can assist these rural students in getting jobs in a short span of time like ITI, Vocational courses, paramedical courses etc., The government is providing scholarships to the students pursuing graduation and post graduation, students need to apply online but due to unawareness of usage of internet in the rural areas the students are not able to use the opportunity. There are various departments in governments and private institutions providing training on a number of job oriented courses, however the reach of these is to very limited audience. Vidya Helpline project has been initiated to bridge the information gap to the students and make them utilize the opportunities they deserve for.

Solution

The information gap is currently bridged through two channels 1. Toll free tele counseling service 2. Career counseling workshops 1. Tele-counseling Service: Any query related to ‘education’ to be answered with our toll free number 1800-425-2426. The calls are attended by trained academic counselors in the Vidya Helpline (VHL) call center. The academic counselors answer the students’ questions with the help of “VHL Voluntary Counselors Network”, “VHL Digital Library” and “VHL Physical Library” and “Web-portals”. Use cases A). A rural student calls up and asks, “I completed 10th and I want to get into job as early as possible to support my family”; the counselor at VHL educates about the various diploma courses offered by vocational training institutes; sends the address of nearest institute as “sms” to mobile phone. B). A parent calls up and asks, “My daughter got a medicine seat, but, I will not be able to support her”; the counselor at VHL gives the complete information on government and private merit-cum-need scholarships and also, educational loans of various banks; sends the same information on email to the student. 2. Career counseling workshops - These are aimed making the rural 9th and 10th class students dream BIG by setting a goal in them and exposing them to various career opportunities post 10th standard. They are also informed about various scholarships and residential colleges to support them to continue their education further.

Example

1. Tele counseling model - Publicity of the call center is done in rural areas. Any student can call VHL tele counseling number for information on admission counselling, scholarships, career counselling etc., and our trained counselors attend those. A real case Caller - Dilawar, 10th completed, poor financial background, a son of a driver, has worked for sometime as a cashier in a small hotel. He came to know about toll free number and called us to know if he can do anything related to hotel management but cannot pay any money. Nirmaan counselor searched the database and identified NITHM (National Institute of Tourism and Hospitality Management) offering a 3 month free course. He need to attend an interview to get into this course. The Counselor provided him the address of the venue and date of Interview. Dilawar attended the interview and got selected for the training course. After completion of the 3 month course, he got campus placement and is currently earning Rs 5000 per month. Delighted Dilawar came to VHL center to thank the counselor. To increase his salary, he now want to pursue fire and safety course and approached the counselor again. Some of the questions are a. How to become a Chartered Accountant etc., b. What are the colleges offering “Hotel management” near my village? c. I am working as a sales boy, how can I pursue my graduation part-time? d. what is CEEP exam? Who are eligible to write? e. I want to become a car-mechanic, is there a free vocational course offered by government? Career workshops - A team of trained volunteer visit rural government schools and conduct the career counseling workshop. This is done in two phases. In the first phase students are made to dream big by setting a goal. This is done by showing motivational videos and telling various real life examples. In the second phase, the sustenance of the goal is measured and the students are briefed about Residential colleges and scholarship options to support their education. A career path is laid for each student and alternate career options are also briefed.

Marketplace

Nirmaan tele counseling center is unique of its kind. Nirmaan is the first one to start a toll free number for education related services in India. However, there are a number of organizations, media etc., working on providing career counseling to the students. They are huge players in the market having great potential to rope in experts and start a similar project. This would result in the entry of multiple players in the market.