April 2025

India aspires to become a developed nation by 2047. To achieve this goal, It will require converting the demographic dividend into a high capacity human capital that can deliver high rate of economic growth consistently. To build this human capital, one of the competencies that needs to be developed in our children is spoken English to be able to participate in a competitive globalised world. Away from the three language formula debate that has dominated the news in the last month, the majority of Indians understand the significance of ability to read, write, comprehend and speak English. It is no more knowledge of an additional language but has become more of a skill. It doesn’t only increase the prospects of a better paying job but also helps in social mobility. This is also evident from the rise in the number of English medium schools in India and rising enrollment in these schools. However, the low-cost private schools, despite high aspirations, often lack the capacity to deliver quality of learning. 

To help the students build proficiency in spoken English, CCS started project Bolo English in 2020 engaging lacs of students through a self-learning mobile application and training teachers with support from P&G Shiksha, Rising Tide Foundation, and Michael & Susan Dell Foundation. In our endeavor to continuously learn from previous experience and find out better solutions, last year we conceptualised and co-created an intervention, the Language Learning Lab, with the aim to provide a learning environment and infrastructure within schools. This ensured access to quality learning intervention in the observation of trained teachers. We pilot tested this idea with 6 low-cost private schools in Delhi with 2431 Students from grades 1 to 5. The initial impression from our ongoing impact assessment looks quite exciting:

1. 97% Students reported a positive experience using LLL Apps
2. 81% Students reported increased speaking confidence
3. 82.8% Parents regularly discuss about LLL with their children
4. 86.5% Students used the app at home at least once/week
5. 55.6% Students prefer application-based learning over the traditional classrooms

CCS has been committed to build a world where each child has access to education of choice. In future, we would like to scale up the project Bolo English to build a convincing case for a social enterprise and institutionalisation by states. India now has the second largest population of English speakers in the world, second only to the United States of America, and hopefully will become the number one by 2030-35. Empower a child’s future through the gift of language—support our initiative today.