In conversation with Pankaj Agarwal, CEO & Founder, Taghive
What new technology has come up since the last year in edtech?
- Distance learning or remote learning has been the tech revolution that the world has seen over the last one year. All other ed-tech innovations have been modeled to keep up with the challenges of remote learning. We have seen the need for better assessment models that also reflects student performances since it has been physically impossible to tap into that. Class Saathi pioneered this with our low cost assessment model that enabled teachers to monitor student performance remotely. This gave them the opportunity to make sure their remote learning techniques have had a measurable impact on students, giving them also the chance to intervene wherever necessary.
How can the tier 2 and 3 cities be tapped using ed-tech in India?
- Tier 2 and Tier 3 cities face infrastructural challenges that make a lot of tech integration highly difficult, to an extent where most administrators delay it. We need to tap into these cities by innovating for their environment instead of expecting these cities to come to us with a full infrastructural upgrade. They will improve their infrastructure for sure, but till then we cannot ignore their needs and we must continue to build sustainable tech models that will only grow with the cities.
How Class Saathi is making progress?
- Class Saathi’s value is being recognised by state governments. After a successful partnership with the Madhya Pradesh government, we now have the Uttar Pradesh government partner with us to bring Class Saathi in 200 schools across Varanasi. Our work is being recognised nationally and we hope to grow our presence in more states of the country in the coming years.
What are the challenges you are facing since Covid?
- Like most organisations, the pandemic took a toll on our operations since our primary model was built for physical classrooms. However, it challenged us to innovate and bring dynamic, low cost technology for students to learn at home with our learning app. We built on this idea by also creating a platform for teachers to monitor their students and assign them homework remotely. So to say, our challenge was not the pandemic but the need to innovate which we did fairly successfully. Over 2 Million questions were solved on the Class Saathi app in 2020 alone.
What are your future plans?
- Since we have already achieved the product-market fit with our in-classroom clicker solution and at-home self learning solution, our focus going forward is SCALE-UP. We are on our path to seal partnerships with foundations, governments and even private school franchises to showcase the magic of Class Saathi to a much wider audience not only in India but also globally.
