The
foundation years of education are also the most crucial ones. It incubates the
next generation of leaders, thinkers and innovators. The challenge before the
primary school educators is to develop such pedagogical methods and strategies
that children grow into independent thinkers. Primary and secondary education
in India can be broadly divided into three categories:
a.
Publicly funded government schools,
b.
Privately established for profit schools, and
c.
Budget Schools, which are privately managed and charge small fees, which barely
cover their running expenses. Our focus is on the budget schools, especially
those in the rural areas, which serve a large section of the society. The
schools and parents aspire to deliver the best to the children, yet the lack of
resources and the apathy of the system are major obstacles they face.
Gurukulplex, a social purpose business unit of Crescent Gurukul Limited,
endeavours to help the schools and parents realize their aspirations. We, at
Gurukulplex believe that all the stakeholders should be involved to make this
happen. To start with, our effort is to bring the parents, teachers and the
school administration on a common platform, where they can benefit from the
advancement of technology. To achieve this goal, we are developing an app,
which is powered by artificial intelligence and worksheets based on Bloom’s
Taxonomy. Our years of experience in education field give us understanding and
reach deep into the rural areas. Our network of computer centers across Uttar
Pradesh can provide technical and logistical support needed by the schools.
The
session 2020-21 was badly affected by COVID-19. Most of the budget schools,
especially in the rural areas could not cope with this unprecedented challenge.
There is economical as well as digital divide between the rich and the poor
populations of India. Those in better financial conditions also had better
resources to overcome the challenges presented by lockdown and different
problems that followed it. Children from weaker backgrounds had the situation
further aggravated against them because most of them were first generation
learners, and no one to educate or guide them in their homes or neighborhoods.
They also lacked access to mobile devices; some had to share with siblings or
cousins. Poverty in India, especially during and after the pandemic can be
divided into two categories:
1.
One is stark and in your face type, and
2.
The other is concealed one, veiled behind the self-respect of hard-working
people who have never extended their hands before others. People who had small
but regular incomes, their livelihoods got destroyed by the pandemic. They have
aspirations to get their children education which they themselves lack. The
system doesn’t favour the weak and the poor. These hard-working,
self-respecting people have great self-esteem and they do not accept charity
and quality is kept beyond their reach. There are apps, websites and channels,
which are free for students, but the schools could not share this information
to the parents because they were themselves not much aware of it. So, the
children were trapped in a system that delivers very little, that too to a
select few.
“Drastic
times call for drastic measures”. To tackle this extraordinary situation,
Crescent Gurukul Limited tried to find a solution. It was concluded that a
mobile app and worksheets could plug the loopholes existing in the current
system and benefit many students, especially those who live in small towns or
rural areas.
This
app will harness the power of Artificial Intelligence to aid the school
administration as well as teaching staff. Assessment and recommendation engines
will not only evaluate the students’ progress and suggest the further learning
resources, but also generate students report for the parents, teachers and
school principals. The support team at Gurukulplex will also suggest parents,
teachers and principals from time to time to adopt newer pedagogical practices.
We expect that within a period of a year or two most schools would have adopted
the Standard Operating Procedures (SOP) set out by Gurukulplex. The hand holding
process will take the schools away from their usual methods and help them adopt
modern techniques to benefit the students. Apart from AI, students will also
get access to Instructor led videos, presentation-based videos and 2D animation
videos.
1.
Instructor led videos will be video-in-video, where full screen will play a
presentation and the instructor will be in a video box (PIP mode).
2.
Presentation based videos will cover most of the private publishers and have
automated voice-overs in different English accents, so the students will learn
these accents at an early stage and this will open an inexhaustible supply of
free resources, especially on platforms like YouTube. These PPTs will be
converted into HTML5 or videos with iSpring. Patented animated characters will
be used in PPTs to develop a connection between student and Gurukulplex.
3.
Animated videos- The most powerful way to clear a difficult concept, is to
explain it in an interesting way. Animated videos are very powerful tool and
they are also very expensive, time consuming and difficult to produce.
The
App will be of very nominal price for the students, and have two models:
1.
Where the school of the student uses Gurukulplex platform, and
2.
Where the student’s school is not attached with Gurukulplex.
In first case the user will get to get the
videos and attempt some quizzes, the results will be shared through links sent
over SMSes, such users could add up to 4 other users. In second case, the users
will get many other benefits apart from the videos and quizzes. Like their
school records will be available under download button, their quizzes will be
analyzed by an assessment engine and a recommendation engine will suggest them
further videos, e-books and quizzes. Their parents and school teachers will get
WhatsApp messages, recommendations and evaluation at personal level, so the
parents and teachers could identify and address the problem areas.
The
Worksheets will be based on Bloom’s Taxonomy and mapped to NCERT syllabus. They
are designed to develop higher order thinking skills among students.
Identifying and developing a child’s true potential is a complicated task.
These worksheets will not only find out how much a child knows, but also
measure how well a student has understood the concepts. The students should
comprehend day to day information conclusively and use it as and when required.
The students will develop their communication skills and learn the use of
numbers, figures, statistics and facts and be able to present them in a logical
manner. The students will be able to present and create opinions and make sound
judgments, and ultimately become independent thinkers, who could bring positive
changes and work for the betterment of the society.
There
are inexhaustible resources freely available on the internet, which students
can benefit from, if they know the right keywords and have some familiarity
with different accents. Our objective is to make quality education available at
budget schools. A comprehensive system will be put in place, where the schools
will have a schedule planned to cover the syllabus, their delivery monitored
through different tools and assistance will be provided from Gurukulplex, if
and when any problem area is identified.
Crescent
Gurukul Limited has an existing network of 250+ franchisee centers which are
known by the brand name Gurukul Universal. These existing centers and
additional new franchises will be entrusted with the task to promote the app among
the schools in their vicinity.
The business model of Gurukulplex relies totally on the premises that there is a demand for personalized learning solutions for students at a very reasonable cost. The AI engines, WhatsApp API, logistics and technical support and worksheets cost monetary as well as human resources. To keep the app very affordable, we target to keep the price less than a thousand rupees, which a student will have to pay once a year. Crescent Gurukul Limited was incorporated in 2008, when the trustees of Crescent Foundation (CF), realized that any charity without a sound business model faces many challenges to deliver benefits to large section of the society. Crescent Gurukul Limited continued the cause of CF, but at a small cost to the beneficiary. CGL provided job-oriented training to 12th passed students as well as graduates, who were otherwise not fully trained to get a decent job. Crescent Foundation is a non-government nonprofit organization set up in 2005 as a public charitable trust to accelerate and support positive change in Education and Health systems. It has a vision to take India on the economic high road with universal literacy, health and abundance. CF has taken many novel initiatives in the fields of female and adult literacy. Our numeracy and literacy primer has benefited many women and has also been adopted by few other charity organizations, which work in this field. Most of the projects undertaken were small in scale but have given us deep insight into the problems faced by the rural poor. It was realized that already difficult lives of the rural poor were further aggravated by illiteracy. CF made eradication of poverty, illiteracy and diseases its main cause. Many projects and studies were conducted, yet some could not be completed due to lack of resources. Gurukul Universal the brand name of CGL, and its franchisee centers have been delivering low-cost job-oriented trainings to the young and aspiring population and have also been a great asset for CF in delivering free trainings and courses from time to time.
