This is a school based program, which caters to school going children from 6-18 age group with about 40% children in secondary school age. 

The CAL Program seeks to:

          o Assist in the bridging of the digital divide for children in Government as well as Government aided schools

          o Enrich teaching / learning levels and interest of children in schooling through the use of child friendly, interactive and curriculum oriented educational software

          o Increase community/parental participation,

          o Enhance the skill sets of teachers in the schools as well as the Pratham trainers

          o Increase enrollment levels, attendance and reduce drop-out rates

The Computer Aided Learning (CAL) Program was initiated in 1998, and has expanded in 8 States, serving over 1,73,000 children and youth since its inception. Today, our presence is in 400 schools, which include Government unaided, Government – aided, Private, Nagar Parishad, Zilla Parishad, Municipal Council and Municipal Corporation level.

The aim of the CAL program is to reach out to all the children from disadvantaged backgrounds, who do not have the opportunities for exposure to IT like other children. IT training in professional institutes is unaffordable for them. Pratham aims to spread the vast knowledge of computers among these children according to their age.

Our approach has always been holistic and program management oriented. Our experiences across 8 States have made us mindful of the different facets that influence a child’s learning and also the multiple variables that contribute to the overall success and sustainability of a Centre. Thus, the execution of the CAL Program is always locally pertinent and contextually relevant, taking into consideration innumerable criteria. 

The preliminary stage involves careful selection of partner schools, recruitment/training of teachers, community mobilization, curriculum finalization, development of teaching-learning aids and base line testing. Classes are kept small to ensure individual attention and optimal learning. The Hardware used is of a high quality and the software includes that developed by Pratham in local languages designed around school curriculum.

To make certain that desired goals & outcomes are being achieved, Evaluation and Monitoring is done at regular intervals and overseen by the CAL Executive Team. 

Sustainability is also a key component of the project plan. Thus, CAL implementation also involves motivating stakeholders from school managements, parents, Government entities, local bodies etc to get involved, lend resources, share ownership and eventually lead the program independently. 

Each CAL Centre that we set up plays a vital role in emphasizing and demonstrating to the local stakeholders the essential role of ICT in education today. Research across the world, conducted by IBM, and reinforced by our own anecdotal evidence has shown comprehensively that the use of IT in early learning has a positive impact on children’s concentration, application, engagement, motivation and attainment. A study by MIT, USA concluded that Math scores of children who participated in the CAL program improved by a 0.47 deviation. Our experience also shows that the Centres are instrumental in attracting children to school, creating enthusiasm around the learning process, improving MIS systems of schools, developing teacher capacities, involving parents more in their children’s education, training local youth etc. Thus the benefits and beneficiaries are numerous.

This program also tries to improve schools performance by encouraging them to adopt various IT solutions like MIS, Database etc and to get teachers to adopt technology through teacher training. A nominal fee of Rs. 10/25 is charged every month and is reinvested into the program. Each center serves approximately 500 students where a maximum of 2 children work on each computer. Each child attends the computer centre twice a week for 1 hour each day. 

For the CAL program, Pratham has partnered with various well known organizations like IBM, Lucent, Reliance (BILT Ballarpur), Intel India, jamshedji Tata Trust, Syntel India, Saint Gobain India, Tata Power Company Ltd., Bharat Petroleum Corporation Ltd., Volkart Foundation, Bharti Foundation, The Paul Hamlyn Foundation and a few more.