Sangha-shaale or sangha-schools is a new concept of collective learning being tried out using new information and communication technologies (ICTs) by IT for Change in its Mahiti Manthana project among collectives of disadvantaged rural women in Mysore. The ICTs being used are videos, community radio and telecentres. For anyone left out of the formal schooling, systematic learning outside this system of formal education has been a very difficult process. This is one of the main developmental problems everyone have been trying to grapple with over the years, but with not very satisfactory results. The concept of sangha-shaale goes beyond the limitations of literacy and availability of useful books in this respect, and seeks direct communication through the audio and visual medium accessible to all. And on the supply side it seeks to develop inexpensively made local ‘content’, often made by the communities themselves. These possibilities allow women to plug into a structured learning form of sangha-shaale, where learning is not in the typical top-down methods, but through uses learner-driven processes, understanding the special circumstances of adult learning.
In Mahiti Manthana sangha-shaales, women get together and choose from a large collection of both local and standard developmental/educational content available at the shaale. A short description of the content, along with a help-sheet with suggested ways of using the content, is also made available. Some of these women are trained for the role of a facilitator, but this is something that progressively all women should be able to do. The help sheet may list the kind of questions the facilitator can trigger the post-viewing discussions with. (Some help in accessing the help-sheet from a literate woman will be needed.)
Discussions mostly go far beyond the original video, and they often produce ideas for new videos which women can then take up. (This may initially require support from an external agency, but not for long.) Altogether access to such rich knowledge base through the videos gives these women a lot of confidence to learn new things and use this learning within the community and with outside agencies in various empowering ways. The use of videos can be bolstered through community radio and community group owned telecentres, as is done in Mahiti Manthana. Altogether, a sangha-shaale thus makes for as structured and rich a learning institution for out-of-school adults as a school is for children. Even without community radio and telecentres component, a viable sangha-shaale can run with a good contextual repository of videos alone. While a good number of videos have to be locally produced, a sangha-shaale will also need a lot of videos in the local language addressing more standard issues – like health and hygiene, commons social problems like alcoholism and dowry, citizenship related information, government schemes, livelihood options etc. The ‘Content Commons’ project strives to fulfil this need of sangha-shaale. The developmental content available free on this website together with locally made content can provide the critical mass to make sangha-shaale viable, and a valuable local community institution.
