Ed-tech lessons for Bharat: Why we need low-cost, WhatsApp-friendly solutions in regional languages

Almost 80 percent of Indian children today are enrolled in state boards. (Photo credit: Ashstar01 via Wikimedia Commons 3.0)

A prevalent view on ed-tech solutions is that they cannot possibly be effective for underserved populations across India’s rural and remote areas. The access problem, that is, access to both internet-enabled devices as well as to the internet itself coupled with the reality that Bharat is an incredibly price-sensitive population requiring high-touch, in-person learning intervention has further fuelled that view. However, the ed-tech landscape in India is showing some incredibly promising glimmers of hope in the times post-COVID. During the pandemic years, the 600+ days of school closures pushed the education system to develop the muscle around enabling online learning for children across socio-economic spectrums. In just three years since then, we’re beginning to see the dawn of low-cost and highly contextualised ed-tech solutions that are helping children from marginalised backgrounds overcome the constraints of under-resourced classrooms - not only to bridge the enduring learning divide but also accelerate learning outcomes.

The Annual Status of Education Report 2023 (ASER) found that 90 percent of children in the country today, post COVID, have access to a smartphone at home. While this has significantly reduced the barriers to accessing knowledge anytime anywhere, there is still a huge gap between students consuming educational content and being able to truly understand and assimilate it. According to ASER’s data, 25 percent of 14-18-year-olds still cannot read a Class II level text fluently in their regional language and more than half struggle with basic division. It’s evident that adaptive and AI-enabled ed-tech platforms have an opportunity to become highly effective supplementary tools for education. But what Bharat would need are solutions that are low-cost, mobile-friendly, integrated with WhatsApp, have vernacular educational content and are highly personalised to aid learning for underserved children.

Consider the online tutoring space which picked up rapidly post pandemic, replacing the traditional tuition centre model. While this opened up access to quality teachers for students across the country, these e-learning solutions primarily catered to tier 1 cities and charged upwards of Rs 20,000 for such services per year. Furthermore, being designed for English-medium curriculums, they were unable to serve the needs of students from state board schools. Such students typically belong to families that can’t afford to pay these prices, making them a largely unacknowledged user segment for almost all ed-tech companies till now. But the size of this group is one to take note of - almost 80 percent of Indian children today are enrolled in state boards.

One example of a startup that decided to serve this student group through an app that offers both live and recorded classes in vernacular languages, along with lecture notes and quizzes, for state board students in grades 9 to 12, is Vidyakul. Currently operating in Bihar, Uttar Pradesh and Gujarat at a price point of Rs 3,000 a year, Vidyakul employs local teachers to create vernacular educational content for all subjects with contextual examples to help students learn better. With 70 percent of state toppers in Bihar recognised to be Vidyakul users in 2023, they’re demonstrating not just the affordability but also the effectiveness of their solution.

Another example that comes to mind is VOPA - a solution that democratises digital learning by leveraging technology as well as a network of government schoolteachers in rural Maharashtra. VOPA’s free app can run on minimal internet and hosts educational content in Marathi, semi-English, and Urdu languages, covering all chapters, multiple choice questions, automatic assessments, and even scholarship exams for students in grades 1 to 10. The app has been used by more than 1.7 million students and teachers since its launch in 2021 - but with zero money spent on acquiring any of these users digitally. How did they do it? They forged partnerships with seven districts in Maharashtra and worked closely with more than 2,500 Zila Parishad teachers - training them to use the app in the classroom and encouraging students to use it at home. The data and insights from the app usage are collected automatically and shared with district government officials, thus enabling them to address any issues promptly.

But to enable lasting transformation in educational outcomes, we need to sharpen the focus right from the beginning of a child’s learning journey and so, empowering ed-tech to build foundational literacy and numeracy is crucial. Solutions like Top Parent, for instance, a free app that uses an Accelerated Learning Framework to empower low-income parents with children aged 3-8 years to build their competencies across numeracy, literacy and logical reasoning, are demonstrating exceptional promise. Through comprehensive assessments, the app identifies individual competency levels and tailors the content accordingly - this personalised approach provides children with appropriate support, thus fostering continuous growth mastery and preparing them for grade school.

Rocket Learning is another free, AI-powered WhatsApp solution that enables low-income parents and Anganwadi workers to focus on early childhood education. Through partnerships with seven state governments, they’ve impacted 1.5 million children and 100,000 Anganwadi workers by creating more than 70,000 WhatsApp communities that provide easy-to-do content for children, and developed 2,000+ audiovisual pieces and worksheets, which are shared with parents and teachers to enhance their learning experience.

In a diverse country like India, ed-tech platforms have the undeniable potential to emerge as a catalyst for quality education at scale. Contextualised solutions that truly meet the needs of students, teachers, and parents from low-income communities could possibly reinvent the way we approach success.