The year 2020 is one of the most unpredictable years in the decade. This year the COVID pandemic brought many challenges with it. One such challenge is the recession and losses of jobs. The recession impacted the workforce community worldwide, but the one who is most affected is the female labour force. The scenario is somehow more depressing for India.
In our country, millions of women have been forced into unemployment involuntarily, or voluntarily as they have to take care of the household as well. In just the private education sector, there are reports of more than a million teachers out of work across the country. This is on top of an already abysmal 25 percent participation rate of the female labour force in India (pre-COVID). In addition, the continuing threat of the virus in the short term, and economic hardship in the medium term, threatens to deprive millions of children of the very necessary early childhood education in their formative years. The situation has potentially far-reaching consequences for the country. The pandemic has left a large number of women unemployed and many young children without access to any early childhood education. Even pre-COVID, of the approximately 160 million children under the age of six in India, less than 50 percent accessed formal or informal early childhood education. That number has gone even lower now.
In order to lessen the challenges various organizations came forward with numerous ideas, and it’s actually commendable that they are offering their best in the current situation. One such organization is Kïdo Education that is endeavoring to create a change in the society, with its offering. Kïdo Education is a global education company with preschools in five countries (including the premium Safari Kid chain in India). The organization has launched Kïdo Village - a platform where any woman in India (whether a teacher or not) can set up a micro-preschool or day-care (a Kïdo Village Pod) at their home for kids in their community. Kïdo provides the training, certification, curriculum, marketing support and quality control. Parents can access a world-class curriculum and high-quality early years education and care around the corner from where they live. Kïdo provides the apps to manage a Pod and communicate with parents. For as little as Rs. 1,500/month, an entrepreneur could set up at home and earn Rs. 70,000/month (sometimes even more).
“We have always believed in a future where every child has access to quality, affordable early years education. With Kïdo Village, we hope that this will become a reality for millions of children in India. We are leveraging our international expertise, curriculum and product to make it available to any person who wants to set up a micro-preschool or creche at home, at a very low cost. They don’t have to be a teacher, as long as they want to take care of young children, we will do the training and the certification. Parents can be assured of a high-quality and safe experience. The really gratifying part is that through this, we create immense self-employment opportunities for women across the country as well,” stated Aniruddh Gupta, Founder & CEO, Kïdo.
The pricing model is simple and affordable for parents and teachers. Teachers are free to charge whatever they deem fit within their neighbourhood to the parents. The platform charges the teachers half of the monthly fees of one child, irrespective of the number of children they take, with a minimum of Rs. 1,500/month. This gives the teachers an opportunity to build an entrepreneurial venture while having the support of Kïdo’s global education best practices.
In each case (and every case), the parents get a high-quality education for a very low cost (given their demographic), and the Pod owners gain employment and income from their homes. The flexible pricing model has the power to transform the lives of children and women across the country since both parents and teachers essentially pay what they can afford. Over time, Kïdo intends to make the platform available to the local governments as well for the thousands of anganwadis across the country. The biggest impediment to high-quality early childhood education in the country is access, training and female employment. Kïdo Village promises to solve for all three.
