The Karadi Path Education Company has been announced as the winner by the London Book Fair International Excellence Awards for the category – Educational Learning Resources. Karadi Path is the only firm from India to win the award this year presented by the London Book Fair in partnership with the UK’s Publishers Association. The shortlist for the different categories of the Awards featured 15 countries across five continents. The winners of the International Excellence Awards will be celebrated at the Online Book Fair in a series of “In Conversation With…” events on 29th June.
The citation from London Book Fair says, “The judges enjoyed reading many excellent entries this year and all three on our chosen shortlist (for Educational Learning Resources) are outstanding. The Karadi Path Education project is our chosen winner due to its innovative approach, versatile and creative content, and its reach which allows the resource to be used by disadvantaged communities who would not normally have access to high quality educational resources.”
The award particularly recognizes resources that are designed to be cost-effective, employing the advantages of technology to reach underserved areas, tribal and rural schools.
Learning innovator and Co-founder of Karadi Path, Mr. CP Viswanath said, “For Karadi Path’s innovation and work in language learning to be recognised by one of the most prestigious institutions of the world, the London Book Fair IEA, is both a validation of the work we do and an inspiration to continue our journey in India and beyond. The team at Karadi Path has been working relentlessly to make learning joyful and available to every child in India. This award is even more special as they have come in the 25th year of the Karadi venture.”
During the pandemic, Karadi Path provided teachers with short learning videos and mentor-led resources on an android app that they could carry with them in setting up community learning camps and mini-schools in their neighbourhoods. In the projects catering to the tribal populations, the resources became portals to teaching hacks. In open fields, in garages, in deserted places of worship, in the narrow by-lanes of villages, teachers began implementing the literacy programme, a few even winged it by creating makeshift classes in villages with no digital access by playing the audiobooks and songs on their car’s stereo-system. The London Book Fair awards recognize these stories of bold innovation and the tools that have transformed teaching-learning experiences.
Karadi Path is supported in government and tribal schools by CSR and government partners including the NSE Foundation, and a FICCI, US-AID, UK-AID, World Bank Collective. Karadi Path has recently launched a “Raising Readers” campaign and will be coming up with a host of offerings to close reading gaps and enhance learning.
The winners of the International Excellence Awards will be celebrated at the Online Book Fair in a series of “In Conversation With…” events on 29th June. They will be speaking about their prize-winning work and the pressing issues within their areas. These sessions will appear alongside author talks, publishing panels, seminars and more at the Online Book Fair.
