Vidyakul, India’s largest state board focused edtech startup, has academically empowered 1 million girls in UP, Bihar and Gujarat through its ‘Project Saraswati’ initiative. The initiative has enabled girls from outlying communities to complete their high school education, who otherwise would have been forced to drop out of school for child labor or marriage. ‘Project Saraswati’ offers low cost online education and offline assistance to each girl child across 500+ villages where Vidyakul operates. This initiative is in line with the Government of India’s ‘Beti Bachao Beti Padhao’ campaign.
Launched in 2023, this was Vidyakul’s first edition of ‘Project Saraswati’. The company aims to take it deeper in small towns in the next two years targeting 7-8 million girl students who are devoid of basic educational resources. Under this initiative, Vidyakul offers scholarships and free subscriptions to academically promising girls, making sure there are no barriers to education. With Vidyakul’s help girls are now completing primary education and earning graduate degrees from top tier colleges/universities like SRCC, Miranda House, BHU, etc. A key impact of this initiative has been the shift of parental attitudes towards breaking resistance against girl education.
Vidyakul is an ‘after-school tutoring app’ that offers online education to state board students of UP, Bihar, and Gujarat (grades 9-12). Often overlooked by mainstream education players, Vidyakul helps these students complete primary education at just ₹300/month, industry’s lowest priced subscription. Some notable stories include Nutan Kumari (Bihar state rank holder), Misti Palak (district topper from Bihar) and Vaishnavi Dwivedi (UP’s district rank holder). More than 50% learners on Vidyakul are girls which indicates girls in Tier-3, 4 and beyond have higher academic inclination.
Tarun Saini, Co-founder and CEO, Vidyakul said, “Financial challenges in remote areas of Bharat often lead families to prioritize their sons’ education over their daughters. Girls often juggle between household chores and overlook studies. Recognizing this unfortunate reality, we started ‘Project Saraswati’ to deliver affordable, home-based, high-quality learning to girls. We want to unlock the potential girls in Bharat hold.”
Manasvi Unadkat, a 100% visually challenged student who scored 94.93 percentile in 10th Gujarat Board exam using free education resources from Vidyakul, said “My family did not have the courage to educate me because they thought it was impossible, but Vidyakul’s free special educational resources for me made my dream possible. I am just one case, there are millions of fellow sisters who are going through worse situations, I hope ‘Project Saraswati’ reaches them and protects their future.”