Goa: 12-year-old creates online learning aids in Marathi, Konkani

PANAJI: The reopening of schools has been delayed and most institutes have decided to focus their online teaching sessions mainly on high school students. Some have also objected to primary school students being burdened with online classes. In these circumstances, a Class VII student of People’s High School Gajesh Naik decided it was time to step in to create educational material for Marathi medium primary students to help them continue their learning at their convenience.
Twelve-year-old Gajesh, who took to coding at age seven and started his own YouTube channel soon after in 2015, spent eight days of the lockdown to create a video which made it possible for Marathi-medium students to learn the letters of the script unassisted. The Santa Cruz-resident first experimented on his younger brother Prasiddh, a Class II student, before he decided that the YouTube video is a successful learning tool.
Gajesh was then approached by two Konkani-medium schools to create similar videos for their students. The Konkani videos too are now ready and have been uplaoded on Gajesh's Youtube channel to be accessed by students.
“I have created around 60 educational videos during the lockdown on python coding, data science, machine learning, web development, computer vision and social media chatbots, which can be used by both adults and children to learn on their own. The video on alphabet for Marathi-medium students came about after the lockdown, when schools were shut and I was concerned about how my brother in Class II could continue to learn,” Gajesh said.
Having studied in the Marathi-medium himself, Gajesh said he understood how challenging it would be for students to lose touch with academics when learning the basics in the lower classes.
“I was approached by a couple of Konkani schools who want Gajesh to create similar videos for their students. But as Gajesh has not studied Konkani, we got him dictionaries and other material, which he studied to make an accurate video for Konkani-medium primary school students,” said Gajesh’s father Siddhivinayak Naik, who is a Goa Civil Service officer.
Gajesh also made a video campaigning for the use of masks, for the Civil Supplies Department where his father is presently director. The youngster prepares the videos entirely on his own, including the sound, script, shooting,editing and research.
Just as plenty of videos are available for English learners, Gajesh’s videos teach young children to recognise Marathi and Konkani letters and learn their accurate pronunciation. He supplements the learning experience with images.
“I am now in the process of making videos to help Marathi-medium primary students learn the math tables and letter combinations. I am currently in the stage of experimenting with the video on my younger brother. Once successful, I will upload the video,” Gajesh said.