Tech Avant-Garde (TAG), technology powered Ed-Tech company and Microsoft’s Global Partner in Education, is setting a new benchmark for Indian schools with the Carte Blanche – 2020 Digital School recognition. Select schools will be honoured with Carte Blanche Digital School graduation at a special function to be held post Diwali in November with the active participation of school trustees, principals, teachers, parents and children amongst various
stakeholders.

The schools eligible for the CARTE BLANCHE DIGITAL SCHOOL 2020 graduation are those that have subscribed towards the MASP PRO / Digital Transformation and Holistic Learning Program (DTHL); wherein school teachers have been trained on Digital Teaching; where the school is conducting online classes daily for all grades; where teachers are MIE (Microsoft Innovator Educator) certified; and where teachers have trained the participants in the Knowledge L’avenir Conclave Webinars.

The benefits to the school due to Carte Blanche graduation are as follows: The school will be certified as Digital School – Carte Blanche 2020; The Management will be awarded with Transformist Certification; Principal will be awarded with Change Maker Certification; DTHL Coordinators will be awarded with Digital Catalyst Certification; Knowledge Lavenir Conclave presenter will be awarded with Adroit Mentor Certification; Teacher with digital skills will be presented with Empowered Educator Certification; Students will be presented with Connected Learner Certification; The parent will be presented with Participative Parent Certification; School will be eligible to become Microsoft Showcase School; Teachers who have given presentations in Knowledge L’avenir Conclaves will be
trained to become MIE Trainers; School will get six month’s free Digital Fee Collection subscription from BBPS (Bharat Bill Pay System) on Efeeonline.

Ali Sait, CEO, Tech Avant-Garde, says, “India is the first nation in the world where educational institutions have fulfilled the requirement of Knowledge Age by becoming a ‘Connected Learning Community’. In history any nation or a society, which adopts modern education practices, becomes the most progressive society of the world. India has the head start we hope it maintains the lead.

The list of Carte Blanche – Graduating schools 2020
Litera Valley Zee School – Hosur
TCIS Bangalore, Sarjapur Road Bangalore
Arya Gurukul – Nandivali, Kalyan
The Blossoms School – Aligarah
Mathakondapalli Model School(MMS), Hosur
Cambridge Public School, HSR Extn. Bangalore
BGS World School, Chikkaballapur
The Green School Bangalore
Huddard High School, Kanpur

Sri Aurobindo International School, Hyderabad
Greenfield Public School, Bangalore
The Orbis School – Keshavnagar, Pune
Lawrence High – HSR Layout, Bangalore
Mind Tree School – Ambala
Sunshine Worldwide School – Goa
Samsidh MLZS School – HSR Layout, Bangalore
Bunts Sangha RNS Vidyaniketan, Bangalore
Dr. Virendra Swarup Eduacation Centre – Shyamnagar, Kanpur
Oxford Grammer High School, Hyderabad
TCIS Bangalore – Whitefield, Bangalore
Carmel School, Bangalore
SJR Kengeri Public School, Bangalore
Little Aryan’s– Kalyan.
DAV Public School, Ambala
Samsidh MLZS School – electronic city, Bangalore
Priyadarshini School – CBSE, Pune
The Regency Public School, Bangalore
St. Thomas School – Gopiganj, Bhadohi
Samsidh MLZS School – Horamavu, Bangalore
VLS International School, Bangalore
The Orbis School Mundhwa, Pune
Subbaiah Central School, Tirupur
Arya Gurukul – Ambernath
Jubilee School, Bangalore
Vagdevi Vilas – Marathahalli , Bangalore
Samsidh MLZS – Vidranyapura,
Priyadarshi School – Moshi
SJR Public School – HBR, Bangalore
Lawrence High School – Koramangala, Bangalore
St Thomas School, Gyanpur, Bhadohi
Cresent High School and Jr College – Pune
Samsidh Mother Tressa Intl School – Kanakapura
Priyadarshini School – SSC, Pune
Florence Public School, Bangalore
St Mary School – Kalayan
International School – Hyderabad
Clarence Public School, Bangalore
Embassy Public School, Bangalore
Samsidh Mount Litera Zee School – Vellore
Auden Public School, Bangalore
Aryan Presidency, Bangalore
Royal Public School, Bangalore
SBBM Middle School, Ambala
Samsidh International School – Vizag

Auden School, Bangalore
SJR Primary & High School, Bangalore
SDM TPP, Titilagarh Odisha
St. Philomena's School, Bangalore

TAG started MIE Trainer training program for the teachers who were given presentation in the Knowledge L’avenir Conclave. This program will be conducted over a period of 12 days. The participants were trained on the topics mentioned below and guided on how to achieve badges on each topic from Microsoft Portal. Once the participants completed the MIE Trainer Academy course, they were guided on how to get certified as MIE Trainer. They were also trained on Presentation Skills & Digital Persona. This was a wonderful opportunity for teachers to get themselves qualified as MIE Trainers.

Empowered Schools: The school in the Connected Learning Community is education’s home base, operations center, and data center. It is where teachers and students meet, discuss projects, establish learning goals, solicit help from one another and embark on new missions of discovery and creativity. These schools have embraced technology and made the organizational changes necessary to use it effectively. Schools can continuously improve and provide efficient service: With a ubiquitous network, enterprise software can help schools track inputs – such as finances,
procurement, inventory, schedules, human resource information and student demographics – and outputs, such as performance information on pre-determined benchmarks and goals.

With better management information, schools can make better decisions. However, such data management requires an organizational commitment from the highest levels of leadership. Schools support teachers, students, and families and reorganize to take advantage of technology. Using technology, schools encourage teachers to experiment with team teaching, longer class periods, experiential learning, or other pedagogical models. Such organizational change can unleash the power of teacher and student creativity.

Administrators must ensure that teachers are equipped with the information resources that they need such as just-in-time information on students, local and state standards, lesson plans and content reviews. Administrators must also ensure that parents have the information that they need such as on-demand, convenient access to student grades, absences, learning goals, school projects and other information TAG became the first company in Indian education sector to partner with the National Payments Corporation of India (NPCI) for the Bharat Bill Payment System (BBPS), a Reserve Bank of India (RBI) conceptualized system, for online payment of fees in schools and other educational institutions. Due to the pandemic educational institutions are experiencing two issues – one is to transform their teaching learning process the other is the fee collection process. TAG fostered Efeeonline is
collaborating with Bharat Bill Pay System (BBPS) to enable digital fee payments. Efeeonline is a bespoke management system, which helps educational institutions to transform their legacy manual fee collection system to a digital system. The fees can now be paid from anywhere, any place or on any device.

Today about 18,000 schools are uploaded on this platform for fees collections. TAG has an MOU with NISA (National Independent School Alliances), which has 55,000 school as its Members; and TRESMA (Telangana Private School Association), which has 9,000 Members Schools. The above associations have mandated TAG to transform their member schools into a Connected Learning Community (CLC) vision of UNESCO. TAG and ICICI Bank, Axis Bank are collaborating to give unique solutions to schools.

TAG is helping the Government of India in its efforts to promote digital classrooms, digital payment mode throughout the country through the BBPS mechanism for enabling contactless and digital payments through NPCI’s integrated, accessible and interoperable recurring payments services to consumers and parents via digital bank channels as well as through a network of agents and bank branches. One single step of onboarding on BBPS makes any school discoverable and accessible on all BBPS enable channels, including BHIM, UMANG, Banks website, all major UPI enabled Apps and Wallets. This enables parents to pay education fee easily from their preferred Banks/Mobile Apps/Wallets.

The Central Board of Secondary Education (CBSE) vide Circular no. CBSE/SECY/SPS/2016 has issued directions to the affiliated schools regarding collection of fees from students only online or through non-cash mode. Hence, all schools affiliated with the Board are advised to on-board on BBPS for to enable, safe easy and contactless digital payment of school fees.

On 5th September, TAG started the record-breaking Knowledge L’avenir Conclave (KLC) webinars in association with Microsoft, Knowledge Key Foundation, LYCEE Corp, Efeeonline and Roshini Social Schooling. The largest congregation of teachers (5,000) took a first-of-its-kind test and 3,750 of them became Microsoft Innovative Educator (MIE) certified in a single day (27th September)! Till 30th November, they will train 150,000 teachers from 72,000 schools with a student-teacher-parent population of 7.6 crore. Ali Sait-advocated ‘Carte Blanche’ schools are the new gold standard in delivery of virtual education and early adopters of the Digital Transformation and Holistic Learning Program. The 4Cs of diamond equivalent of digital classroom teaching-learning in the future are the Change, Connected Learning Community, Conclave (Knowledge L’avenir Conclave) and Carte Blanche
Graduation; and Certification for School teachers. TAG unveiled NEP-compliant Learning Management System (LMS) software called AZVASA, which helps teachers with STUDY, REVISE, ASSESSMENT modules. AZVASA Connect is a complete School Management Solution having Teacher – Student – Parent Connect in one platform. Schools undergoing Digital Training & Holistic Learning program to make the school & teachers future-ready, will be graduated in a ceremony is called Carte Blanche 2020 to a ‘Connected Learning Community’, which is a utopian concept and Shangri-La of education.

TAG fostered Lycee Corp to meet the needs of every educational institution to transform from the four walls of the classroom to a Connected Learning Community (CLC). In CLC, students, educators and parents have anytime, anyplace access to learning; Learning is relevant, individualized and personalized; Schools have information systems that support accountability and efficient management; Schools, campuses, homes, libraries, businesses and global resources are connected in a dynamic, collaborative learning environment. It’s 2020 Vision of UNESCO. The product Lycee-Cyber Academe was developed under the fostering program of Tech Avant-Garde. From the stable of Lycee Corp, Roshini launched Efeeonline-Bespoke Fee management system for educational institutions. Now, Efeeonline has a co-sell program with Microsoft called MASP Pro. Efeeonline has the following facilities: The ERP Platform: Using this facility the fees formats, receipts, dues and reports could be generated. Parents Dashboard: parents can pay the fees, get the fee receipts and can track the dues using this facility. Which is available online and as a mobile app on IOS and Android. E-Governance: Using this facility, the school administration can do realtime tracking of the
online fee collection and settlements. Efeeonline is also available on Microsoft Aspire School Program offering as MASP PRO. This is a value-based offering, which has dual advantage – it enables digital teaching learning process and is also enables digital fee collections.

Also read: 3,100+ teachers certified as Microsoft Innovative Educator by Tech Avant-Garde