Support Keen Talented Young Learners
NextStep Foundation identifies talented keen young learners studying in recognised schools and provides them personalised long-term support. We provide scholarships for selected talented learners between Grade 5 and Grade 12, who consistently meet merit-means-keenness thresholds.
Every such learner is assigned to a long-term mentor who act as a guide, role model and risk manager, helping the learner (and their family) address risks to their continued education by providing personal guidance and/or drawing on NextSteps resources.
The NextStep mentor helps the talented learner by providing
- Funding
- Networking
- Information / Knowledge
- Coaching
- Skills
- Teaching
- Sheer presence when the learner needs it the most
Support Dedicated Individual Mentors
Individuals, wanting to give back to society put in personal time, resources, effort etc. in mentoring learners. These efforts at times fall short due to resources, appropriate knowledge, etc.
NextStep will support them through various means such as funding, training & development, technology tools to empower them with 5 key capabilities (viz.) to – connect, communicate, collaborate, co-ideate & co-create.
Partner with recognised schools & para-schools
NextStep partners both with recognised schools as well as with exceptional non-profits working with underprivileged learners to support remedial and/or step-up education centres (After School Learning Centres). The ultimate goal being to discover talented keen young learners from these centres based on merit-means-keenness assessments and then provide long-term support to a select set of talented, keen learners who are deprived. All of this subject to the select learners continuing to meet agreed performance & behavioural thresholds.
Build A Supportive Mentor Community
Many passionate and dedicated Indians of all ages & hailing from diverse backgrounds, voluntarily mentor school-age learners. They often work in isolation, with little or no recognition and assistance from others. Mentors are limited by distance or by financial or personal capabilities from making a larger impact. As two-heads are better than one – a like minded community or support group would be invaluable in helping them pool their experiences and work together to find solutions or evolving more effective ways of mentoring. NextStep will help build a mentor support community to empower mentors by bringing them together in a like-minded community. Among other things, the mentorship community could enable mentors to:
- Post their stories, queries, solutions & suggestions
- Post invitations for financial advance to provide for spend on their mentees.
- Build and develop sub-communities of like-minded people and organisations wherever they may be located
- Work collaboratively with like-minded people & non-profits to develop new and more effective ways of mentoring.
- Make more effective use of their limited time by convenient central recording of mentorship records & using automated workflows to track and monitor their mentees growth & development
- Interact offline and online on the platform with mentees and mentors
- Access standardised learning, training, development & assessment tools
- Integrate with appropriate external public and private platforms such as Aadhaar, DigiLocker, DIKSHA, SWAYAM, BHIM, external LMS’s etc to draw on existing public resources and facilities.
The Margdarshak system, which is NextStep’s proposed IT enabled mentorship empowerment system, is being conceptualised to serve the above needs of exceptional mentors and their mentees. In addition, the system will enable mentors to guide mentees remotely, augmenting face to face sessions – and allowing more efficient/effective use of their time. The assigned mentor on the spot may draw from a pool of empanelled specialists such as career counsellors, psychologists, grief counsellors, specialist instructors etc to provide powerful support to the mentee. We plan to leverage the onsite/offsite mentorship model to offset the resource-gaps that underprivileged learners routinely encounter in comparison to learners from better off families.