The Yountan Yargyas MeshNet Offline Learning System is an education project that is addressing the more than 70% of students lacking access to learning during the Covid 19 era in Ladakh. Yountan Yargyas translates roughly to New Developments in Learning. It’s a mesh network that broadcasts to the entire community, allowing everyone to connect to the news, learning and importantly connecting to each other, even if they are in quarantine. The tablets that students are given contain the highest quality interactive learning, including all of the state education curriculum materials, Department of Education videos, District Administration information like the Department of Health’s Covid mythbusters and much more. The MeshNet is interactive. Students can broadcast their own nightly news as part of language arts learning. Children can set up homework groups using email. High schoolers can document local history arts and environmental issues while applying science learning through Ladakhipedia.
A meshnet system can broadcast for up to 5 kilometres, 100 houses and all the government offices in town. The set-up can be easily taught to high school students and a villager can be trained to be the operator. The six Yountan Yargyas Meshnets broadcast to every village home and serve over 6000 government school children. The pilot MeshNet project in 2020 was successful in convincing government school teachers to use technology, creating educational materials in local dialects, and addressing non‐curricular learning needs, especially mental health information and job skills development.