Language instructor who built ‘learning apps’

Language instructor who built ‘learning apps’

Nimesh.Khakhariya@timesgroup.com

05.09.2021

When schools were locked due to the Covid pandemic, educators were left with no option but to search for learning tools to overcome the distance barrier.

But many years before the lockdown, Nahid Khan Ligari, a teacher working at a district panchayat-run school in Junagadh district, had tapped on to the benefits of alter native modes of learning and developed ‘learning apps’. What more, he also devised a way to overcome the internet connectivity issue, by developing apps that worked in offline mode too.

What makes his efforts even more praiseworthy is that apart from facing the usual ‘limited or no resources issue’, Ligari also had no ‘technical or software’ background. A language teacher, Ligari teaches Gujarati, Hindi and English. Yet he took the pains of learning the basics of app developing.

The desire to make education accessible to all drove him on, says Ligari. “I was always thinking of making education available to students at their doorsteps,” Ligari said.

Ligari’s work was recognized by the National Council of Educational Research and Training (NCERT). He was recently conferred the ‘National Information Communication & Technology’ award by NCERT.

Ligari has developed two apps so far — an encyclopedia and a dictionary. Once downloaded on mobile phones, the two apps work in offline mode. The Internet is needed only at the time of app update.