Education to masses through technology

Beas Dev Ralhan, CEO - Next Education, talks about Mathslab, the company's new software cum lab that claims to provide complete and comprehensive knowledge on CBSE MathematicsA "We have remotes to our products which makes the job of the village teacher easy as they are not much aware of the computer techniques. It gives freedom to the teachers as they need not stress themselves". Purnima Sriram Technology has now touched education sector extensively, but only in urban areas. Not many have thought of the development of education in rural areas. To make the technically challenged population of rural areas, Next Education a technology-driven education enterprise based in Hyderabad, has come up with products which will reportedly help them enjoy the privileges of the education with technology.

How much does technology help in the cause of education? A few decades back, there was not much innovation in education sector. To bring in change in the quality of education and reach all students regardless of their economical status using technology and communication as a weapon, we came up with an education-based enterprise. We offer learning solutions for the K-12 (Nursery to Class XII) segment across CBSE, ICSE, IGCSE and 23 other Indian state boards in eight languages.

Why are your solutions different from the other enterprises? We have researched and developed technologies which are designed for the Indian masses. Technological advancements like 2D & 3D graphical interactive content mapped to the curriculum of international standards, voice-overs by Indian artistes and innovative course design which are easily accessible by using standard remote. We have more than 900 in-house content developers. We wanted to reach the masses. There are many enterprises in the education sector, but they target only the urban classes where as rural area students are sidelined. We want to reach those students and provide them quality education with technological touch.

What is Mathslab, a new product launched by your company offer? It is one of the three products we have launched, the others two being Teach Next and Learn Next. Mathslab. is the most recent one. We researched for three years before we came up with our first product. Teach Next is an e-learning solution that combines hardware, software, content and service that delivers technology and traditional classroom teaching. It also offers interactive tool and virtual activities with animations & voice-overs. The content providers like Britannica, BBC Motion Gallery, Algoodo are also associated with Teach Next. Learn Next concept has made it easier for students to understand complex topics, problems and theorems by interactive, intelligent, independent methods and focused mainly on self-learning. Maths Lab was launched very recently. It is software cum lab that provides complete and comprehensive knowledge on CBSE mathematics. It is an integrated version where we have workbooks, paper cutting problems and solutions. We have built every kind of solution to Maths in this product.

Do you think rural India is ready to embrace such innovations in education? Unlike other enterprises which cater only to the rich private schools in urban areas, we provide quality technology-based education in rural areas too. We have remotes to our products which makes the job of the village teacher easy as they are not much aware of the computer techniques. It gives freedom to the teachers as they need not stress themselves. They need not face the board or stress themselves by writing on the board. They just have to use the remote. We have 400 to 500 support person across the country to help whenever they are called for any technical help. Usually villagers have issues in solving any technical issues as there are not much aware of it. So we have support persons who help them in 48 hours of their call.