Experts Byju Yuanfudaotobin Restworld: Across the developed world, a number of national governments have been exploring how to harness the potential of digital technologies to improve outcomes in education.
In early January 2018, India’s Central Board of Secondary Education (CBSE) announced that it will offer an online version of its tenth-grade board exams for the first time in 2020. The widespread aim is to reduce costs and make quality education more accessible.
But if India wants to improve its education system with technology, then it needs to think about the kind of technology that’s being used. The government does not want students staring at screens for hours, so the online exams are designed for shorter sessions, perhaps an hour at most. The system is low-tech and doesn’t rely on streaming live video from classrooms. The exams will be taken on computers in school labs or using web-connected devices like tablets and mobile phones.
The system is low-tech and doesn’t rely on streaming live video from classrooms.
“The goal . . . is to make it user friendly,” Usha Ramanathan, Head of the CBSE’s Centre for Education Technology, told The Hindu. “The technology has to be aimed at helping the students and not taking them away.” That, she added, means the system shouldn’t require students to log in via a mobile app or an online portal all day long.
Two Singapore-based startups are now making that possible. Byju’s Classroom and Yuanfudao have both developed platforms to deliver online classes in schools through their mobile apps, which students can use at any time throughout the day and on any device.
Digital education firms offer a growing number of digital learning opportunities to students, parents and educators in India. However, while they are clearly disrupting existing schemes in the country, many experts are not convinced that these companies provide genuine learning outcomes, and whether they will be sustainable.
Bangalore-based Byju’s, the most established of the two startups, has almost 5 million users on its platform and has raised more than $200 million in investor funding over the past several years. Yuanfudao, which was founded in January 2017, is now focused primarily on China after shutting down its service in India. Both are using digital tools to transform existing education models.
For a comprehensive look at the entire article click on the headline: Experts say lessons marketed by digital education platforms like Byju’s and Yuanfudao are more an innovation in test-prep delivery than in learning outcomes.
In an exclusive interview with The East India Company, Byju Raveendran, Founder and CEO of BYJU’s launched the company’s new platform that enables students to learn through a mix of text, videos and audio. We find out how the platform works in more detail.
The new platform is a global mobile app, with the ability to decide from the curriculum available in English and Hindi. These courses are mapped to international school boards like ICSE, CBSE, IGCSE and IB. The company says that this curriculum is designed as per the specific learning needs of each student with multiple features for every grade. The entire curriculum is also available in English.
According to BYJU’s CEO, the school will have to include the language of the student in its syllabus. “If they are studying in English, then there will be these courses,” he said. Students can also access these courses from any other part of the world as long as they have a data connection. The focus is on bringing out a global curriculum for all students in India.
