Huge potential for online schooling

Santosh Kumar, Co-founder & CEO and Yeshwanth Raj Parasmal, Co-founder & Director share the aims and objectives of 21K School, India’s #1 online school. What is the future of online learning and what opportunities do you see in the Indian market for 21K School to evolve? The concept of online school is relatively new. India is a very large market especially in the K-12 space — the second largest worldwide. We are aware that online schools cannot fully replace physical schools but there is growing need for schools that offer personalised, flexible learning. Especially for students in small town India with limited access to quality teachers. We have discerned a large number of students whose parents need to frequently move cities because of job requirements. Such students can easily sign up for online schooling. Apart from being a safe environment from the perspective of corporal punishment and bullying experiences of physical schools, we believe online schooling is a more convenient option for students with physical disabilities as well. Moreover, we understand a large number of parents residing in metro cities are concerned about high cost of education. With online schooling, that cost comes down drastically. For e.g., our average fees for the Indian curriculum is Rs. 40,000 only which is half the cost of uniforms and transport alone. So, it’s a huge advantage in terms of quality of education, accessibility, transparency, convenience and the flexibility it brings in. We believe online schooling is here to stay in India and worldwide. What curriculum do you follow in 21K School? We follow a curriculum aligned with the national curriculum framework that all schools in India are mandated to follow. Moreover, we are also a centre for Pearson Edexcel curriculum. We offer the British curriculum under the Edexcel programme, and the American High School Diploma accredited by Cognia, USA. through our partner Stride Learning, What is the unique feature of your school? Ours is a technologically-driven new age school. Children easily log into class from home without undergoing the stress of an average five-hour daily commute to and from school. Online school allows children free time to pursue their passion be it coding, sport, art, dance or music. In effect, online schooling has dismantled the factory model of school education. Secondly, online schooling is defined by transparency and a data-driven approach. New age technologies usage enables teachers to better assess students’ learning outcomes in real time. Students’ performance is tracked on a regular basis to ensure every child in 21K School crosses the minimum learning levels and can continue to learn and grow. We use AI for providing differentiated learning paths for each student based on the child’s academic progress. Learning nuggets are generated to ensure that the child is challenged and constantly growing in his understanding of each concept ensuring flexibility and personalisation of lesson plans. We also have an extensive digital library with 800 plus titles and a VR lab for interactive learning practicals for science classes. Last but not the…