- How did the idea of Surasaa conceive?
Teacher education in India is broken. And while everyone knows the problem, very few understand it. Our research on teacher education standards, curricula, and delivery networks around the world led us to a place of better understanding on this ever growing problem and led to the idea of building a one stop solution for in service & pre-service teacher education. Hence after almost 8 years of on-field research ‘Suraasa’ was founded in 2018.
- How does your edtech platform work? Are you building the technology in-house or there is a third-party vendor?
Suraasa is an e-learning platform which enables teachers to upskill themselves with content and pedagogy created In-house by our research and development team. The platform is available as a web and app-based solution and can be found on both android Play store and Apple App store.
The technology has been built in-house and comes with an experience that has been built on our Cognitive Learning Technology. The technology enables one to develop deep rooted skills while they learn and also build a personalised skill portfolio for better career opportunities. Teachers are able to learn, complete assignments, join live classes, pursue complete qualifications online with real-time classes with professors from around the world. In fact, teachers will be able to apply for international and domestic teaching jobs from within the platform soon and schools will be able to search and hire highly skilled teachers.
There’s a series of updates and features planned for the next 2 years.
- What is your business model and why do you feel it is the need of the hour?
Tech-based learning is the highest growing business today and has become a priority in the post COVID world.
Our model is to offer b2c solutions directly to prospective and current teachers who wish to explore high growth opportunities in the field of international education. A teacher comes and registers on the platform to either take a qualification or a short term certification for the next possible success milestone.The model offers both online as well as centre-based tech enabled solutions and one can choose what they are comfortable with.
While the solution is new, there has been a good acceptance of the model in the past years and is set to grow multi-fold in years to come.
- What is your plan for the next 12 months?
We plan to expand our online presence in India, UAE and the UK in the next 12 months. We also wish to open 7 more centres in these countries taking our total number of centres to 10 by the end of this year.
- No. of teachers onboarded so far?
We have around 8000 teachers on our platform today and have over 300 teachers who have taken our Graduate Level qualifications.
- Any plans to raise funds in 2020 and if yes, how you wish to utilize it?
We wish to raise funds to:
- expand in new locations in India and to two new countries
- enhance our technology
- set up a sales and delivery call centre
- What is the future in India?
India is set to become the export hub of teachers. We have both the numbers and the brains to lead the teaching profession for the world and our qualification is a vehicle that will drive this growth.
Like nurses, India will supply teachers to the world and Suraasa will enable the process.
