Page 38 - EducationWorld January 2021

Cover Story

Divya Lal: irreversible change (L-R) Siddabatulla, Noheria & Thulasanami: unique business model

face-to-face teaching-learning — will dashboards to track students’ learning VI-XII teachers and students. Within
soon be available to all, including gov- progression. two years of launch the company
ernment schools. claims to have reached 300,000 stu-
“Although it’s true that the pan- HE HUGE BUSINESS op- dents of whom 30,000 have signed up
demic and prolonged lockdown of T portunity offered by 21st for its learning from-home tutorials.
schools has posed new unprecedent- century India’s massive “We offer free-of-charge access to
ed challenges for educators, parents K-12 education market Cloud-based tool kits comprising over
and students, it has also opened up comprising 1.50 million schools, in- 3,000 videos and 1,000 AR simula-
new opportunities that could redefine cluding 450,000 private schools, still tions to registered schools for classes
learning. The evolving education land- overwhelmingly mired in the chalk- VI-XII STEM subject teachers to make
scape enables a more elastic under- n-talk teaching-learning era, has also their lessons enjoyable and engaging
standing of how to walk the tightrope aroused the interest of Indian origin for students. Subsequently parents/
between online and offline learning. edupreneurs abroad. This interest has students who find them sufficiently
Quite unexpectedly, teachers in class- been sharpened by the newly emer- interesting and enabling may sign
rooms have proved to be eager to gent national consensus that Indian up with us for supplementary online
learn to distribute education through education — especially the K-12 sector tutorials on any STEM subject priced
new technologies that can liberate — needs to be dragged, even if kicking at Rs.1,300 per month for five hours
learners from the clutches of obsolete and screaming, into the digital age. and Rs.3,000 for 20 hours per month.
traditional pedagogies. The beneficial This awareness prompted three Under this unique business model, we
outcome of these troubled pandemic US-based tech-savvy edupreneurs — have already registered 130 schools in
times is that change driven by the flex- Subbarao Siddabatulla, an alum of the Middle East and India,” says No-
ibility, versatility and economies of Andhra University and IIM-A, Charu heria.
digital education seems irreversible,” Noheria (R.V. College, Bangalore Curiously despite considerable ex-
says Divya Lal, managing director of and University of Illinois) and Ilan- citement being generated in the coun-
Fliplearn Education Pvt. Ltd, a Delhi- govel Thulasanami (Andhra Uni- try’s 450,000 private schools about
based LMS (learning management so- versity and 20 years in SaaS industry) the digitally driven online learning
lutions) company which stepped up to to promote the Hyderabad-based 3rd revolution and numerous new tech
the plate after the national lockdown Flix Visual Effects Pvt. Ltd in 2018. platforms, apps and services flooding
to provide 300 schools with 15,000 The company has since developed a the marketplace, there’s little con-
teachers and 300,000 students com- unique teaching-learning app chris- cern about infusing digital teaching-
prehensive, curriculum-mapped vir- tened Practically which provides “in- learning technologies into the coun-
tual learning programmes integrat- telligent, interactive and immersive” try’s 1.20 million government schools
ing high-quality content, assessment STEM (science, technology, engineer- which grudgingly host 53 percent of
and feedback, live online classes and ing and maths) education to classes India’s 260 million in-school chil-

38 EDUCATIONWORLD JANUARY 2021