Study! This one word is often enough to send a kid into a bad mood, or remind a lot of us of some not-so-fond memories from school or college. Although it is an obvious fact that education and its growth are directly linked to the growth and opportunities in a nation, the quality and method of education in our schools and colleges often leaves students wanting more or dreading the whole experience altogether as a chore or a tiresome effort.
A host of startups in India are trying to tackle these very problems in the education sector by leveraging technology to make education more accessible and approachable on one hand, and on the other bringing world-class experts and state of the art knowledge to help learners achieve what would take a lot more effort otherwise. Don’t worry, we know that the exam season is just over and many of you just got started on enjoying your vacations. Consider this one a repository of resources on how to make studying all the easier this coming year and later in the future, without losing your shot at any of the goals that you have set for yourself
From your day-to-day classes to the lofty entrance exams, these startups want to provide you with all the resources you may need to give it your best.
Started by former IITians, Vedantu is an online tutoring platform that provides live tutoring for students from classes 4 to 12 for both ICSE and CBSE boards across India. It has a wide array of available subjects at a number of levels ranging from Science (Physics, Chemistry, Biology), Mathematics to Hindi, German, Aptitude and more. This format of 1-to-1 or 1-to-few tutoring is similar to what students have been used to otherwise, with tuition classes being a norm in the Indian education system. Vedantu takes that familiarity one step further by providing audio-visual techniques via WAVE (Whiteboard Audio Video Environment), a technology they have developed in-house, to further aid the teaching process.
On one hand there are specific exam revision courses available for multiple boards from specific teachers, with fixed pricing and fixed schedule. On another format, particular teachers can be sought via a search feature that allows you to see their profile, qualifications, previous ratings, total hours taught and how much they charge on an hourly basis. You can also contact them before enrolling them.
Vedantu’s model is one of the most unique ones out there
The Instalearn feature allows you to ask doubts instantly to any teacher available online. If the subject and grade that you have selected does not have teachers online, your doubt will be resolved at a later time. There is a free trial also available for new sign ups which adds certain balance into your Vedantu account, allowing you to try out a session with a teacher of your choice.
Although the approach is the strength, it might also be a weakness in cases where even their proprietary low data solutions might not work out on low-speed connections. Also, there are competitors who are specializing in exam preparation via test series and paper-based approach, which might be preferred by a significant share of students.
One name comes across a lot if you look around online for a test-preparation site for the standard Indian entrance examinations for Engineering as well as Medical graduation, along with the K-12 segment of studies. Embibe provides a very good interface that is both mobile as well as tablet friendly. Founded by an Aditi Avasthi, Embibe’s aim in this segment is to leverage data analytics to help the student tackle the pressure of exam preparation.
Once you are signed in, you can experience Embibe’s attention to 3 functional areas to improve performance –
The popularity of Embibe is one its strong suits
Each exam you give on the platform is followed by detailed analytical results about the above factors based on your performance in the test. You can also bookmark questions during the tests you take in the “Practice” or “Test” section to access them in the “Revision” section later.
The “Learn” section provides you detailed info from various sections of the website regarding particular chapters and concepts – like Questions that rankers got wrong, important theories, previous year questions from that topic, relevant exams etc.
The “Ask” section allows you to post your doubts and queries to be answered by others while the “News” section takes you to 100 Marks by Embibe, a news portal to stay on top of the most important news regarding the exam that you seek to target. You can also use the Rank and College predictor on your profile although we cannot assure you that it will be correct.
The platform works on the Freemium model with “embiums” being the platform currency that you can purchase for real world money. This particular choice is a bit confusing as it would be helpful to directly see the actual expenditure needed. A varying degree of things like a complete test series, a special series on careless mistakes etc are behind a paywall. Overall, Embibe comes highly recommended and is definitely worth a try.
| Nayi Disha |
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| Bangalore based Nayi Disha Studios is a game development startup that takes the boredom out of pre-school education and throws it out of the window. They develop motion-sensing interactive games that aim to make learning a lot more fun by making the kids run, jump, move their hands and a lot more as a group to interact with the game on a screen. It takes into account the different ways a child can learn via listening, watching and moving. Here’s how they do it. |
Currently backed by Info Edge, Meritnation dove into the K-12 education scene way back in 2009. This platform works out as a complete overall social network experience for education. Signing up on this platform involves providing your Board, Class, School and some other minor details. It automatically links you to other students from that school and suggests them as friends on the network.
All the Live classes for Entrance exams, Chapter tests and most Online tuitions on the platform are paid, with study materials and textbook solutions available for free. It also has IITJEE and AIPMT preparation material. For most of these, the first chapter or test for any subject is free with the rest of it being paid.
Students can exchange their views in the Ask & Answer section, regarding Academics and School Talk, although the School Talk section doesn’t seem to have a content monitor, and not all content being posted there is relevant to studies.
As you can see, Meritnation is highly cluttered
Apart from studies, the personal profile section has Aptitude tests, Personality tests, Career Guidance, Stream Selection help etc. One of the biggest problems with Meritnation is that there is too much for a student to deal with. The home page itself consists of a mix of Questions, Doubts posted by others, Videos seen by others, and other activity by people on your network, which might end up being more of a distraction than helpful. But if someone can deal with this quantity of information not just about themselves but their fellow students as well, then there is truly no other alternative to Meritnation.
Out of all the apps that we tried, this was the only one that blocked screenshots. That should tell you something about the amount of work that has gone into creating the content at Byju’s classes – which is its biggest strength. Started by Byju Raveendran, Byju’s is totally aimed at creating world-class content related to each topic in such a manner that the explanations almost seem intractable. Once you sign up, you will soon be assigned an instructor who will get in touch with you to guide you through the learning process.
According to them, their teaching techniques are copyrighted, with the teachers being alumni of some of the most prestigious institutions in the country. Along with that, they have a dedicated content production team that is dedicated to making the videos academically and creatively best in the market. There are also chapter wise and unit wise tests that are adaptive in nature, that is, the difficulty of the next question is determined on how you perform on the current question.
BYJU’S is easily the winner in content quality
BYJUs has been consistently acclaimed for the quality of their course and video material and it is definitely worth a try.
Although TOPScorer’s content leaves a lot of scope for improvement, it has one very unique feature compared to other startups – an offline product. Along with their online product on their website which includes textbook chapters, audio-visual aids, chapter wise and cumulative tests, report cards etc, there is an offline offering that brings all of that beyond the website as a Pendrive for Windows and an SD card for android. The only feature you miss out on is the feedback regarding errors on the product.
Created by the Navneet group, that has had a long relation to the education sector in India, TOPScorer shows the advantage of all that experience in their close integration with the school curriculums at national and state levels. Due to the large adoption already underway, there is a facility to analyze and compare your scores with a large number of students at a state level. There is also the feature of ‘Build my pack’ that allows you to select only the chapters and tests you want to and pay only for those.
There is also a feedback tool that lets you take screenshots of any difficulty or error you face in the course of your learning and report it to the support team.
One of the only startups with an offline solution available
To check these features before you buy a pack, you will need to signup on the website. And if you are on the app, some course videos may not work.
The offline product can be purchased from TOPScorer.com, teenvan.com, esense.com and offline via sales team and telemarketing. Their price varies from Rs.2,500 to Rs.10,000 . They also provide a solution for schools called TOPClass – almost 10,000 teachers are already using it to teach more than 7 lakh students.
NIIT has been a big name in the Indian education industry, especially among Digital Education based companies, since more than 25 years. And in all these years, it has always leveraged technology to improve the process of learning and advised other companies on how to fully utilise the potential of technology. So it is no surprise that NIIT.tv, NIIT's online learning platform received the "Best Online Education Platform" at the 6th Annual Indian Education Congress and Awards organised by Franchise India.
The platform provides live and on-demand courses based on the classroom courses provided by the many NIIT classroom centres across the country. These courses are video based and can be accessed freely from any device on the Windows or Android platform with internet access. The Android app is not as well designed as some of the other education apps that we have evaluated, but the amount of content available and NIIT's own credentials in the education in the industry make this one of the most reliable options out there. According to their website, all of the content on the website is free, including the live sessions.
Free content with NIIT's credibility backing it
The content includes a wide variety of topic ranging from academic to business to IT platforms. It also has non-mainstream courses in topics like Personal Development, Design, Language, Music and even Photography. The platform requires you to register although you can also log in via Facebook or Google, and once you are logged in, the entire content directory is open for access. It also allows organisations and individuals to register as Trainers/Content Partners and provide their own content for the benefit of the users.
NIIT.tv has recently launched courses for Free CBSE Board exam preparation for 10th and 12th standard students which were availed by a total of 44000 students. The platform has already reached more than 160 countries across 6 continents with a total of 2,40,000 users availing more than 5400+ courses.
At first sight, Genext Students might appear to be just another online tutoring platform with digital content. That is not entirely incorrect, as the platform does offer study materials and video courses to students after an initial assessment test. What separates it from the others though is its emphasis on combining online, mobile and physical tutoring. The platform allows you to search for tutors in their vicinity after you set the search criteria based on area, board, class, and subject. Also, the profiles of the tutors contain information that will be helpful for a potential student, like education details, proficiency in certain subjects, a Verified badge, Hourly pricing and experience details. This feature allows you to locate real tutors around you for physical tutoring, which many still consider the best way to learn.
The Study material on Genext Students is separated into free and paid content
Regarding the study material and additional features available, they are not free and are priced in three different categories – For Chapter, For Subject and For Class for Rs.30/year, Rs.900/year and Rs.3900/year. The highest tier includes a lot of additional features like Class Analytics and Study progress trackers, along with free counselling and free mobile access. On the Study Material section of the website, each subject in each class has a few free chapters that you can access without paying, whereas a number of other chapters are paid and need to be purchased.
Dr. Roman Saini and Gaurav Munjal have one goal with Unacademy – to provide all the education in the world on one platform for free. Founders at Unacademy.in, they aim to bring education for every field, including Government service preparations to those who cannot afford them and give them the opportunity to compete equally with more privileged competitors. The platform provides content on a variety of topics like Government service exam preparations like Banking, CA, CAPF, UPSC and other competitive exams like CLAT, CAT, JEE, Pre-Medical. It also includes tutorials for languages, although right now this is limited to English, Spanish, and French. The platform follows a social model with respect to its tutors, as it asks you to follow tutors on the platform to receive content from them on your homepage which is somewhat like a timeline.
You can even sign up as a tutor on the platform after you attend a short course for the same
Unacademy has a highly active Youtube channel where they provide the videos uploaded on their website and they get over a million video views every month.
This article was first published in the March 2016 issue of Digit magazine. To read Digit's articles first, subscribe here or download the Digit e-magazine app.