leader speak
Vibes from the Industry Leaders... In order to present a comprehensive picture of the way digital education is progressing in India, we have collected the views of some of the leading stakeholders in education. Just a quick glance at the concise inputs that we have gleaned from the noted players in the industry will be enough to place the spotlight on the most crucial issues that our system of education grapples with today. There is no doubt that the modern curriculum represents a noted departure from traditional approaches to education, but there are many challenges that we are yet to overcome. New technologies in education are constantly becoming available, yet there are many challenges in implementing them in schools and higher education institutes across the length and breadth of the country.
The Next Step in Education Take strong concepts, and research with academia to come up with solutions that are really designed for India
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t is the job of educational entrepreneurs to work with the academia and create solutions that are more accessible to consumers. When Next Education started developing content, we found that there was a paucity of research material that would actually give important information on how to develop content. For instance, if English is the second language, then what is the minimum vocabulary that someone needs to have to be considered proficient in the language? At what speed should words be delivered to ensure that the child’s retention is highest? Web searches will not yield the answers. Only the academia can provide such answers. Content providers need to work with the academia closely and identify
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such issues, understand them, address them, and then bring useful data back to the masses. Next Education has been doing such research by initiating close interaction with the academia in order to identify key parameters for effective designing of educational products. The objective was and still remains to ensure that the product can be used easily by students. A solution may have the best possible animation, excellent voice coverage, etc., but will be useless if it cannot deliver the right message at the right speed. Thus, research by academia partnering with content developers is very important. For example, thousands of dictionaries are available in the market, but research shows that traditional dictionaries can’t
Beas Dev Ralhan CEO, Next Education
help a child to build a vocabulary. Princeton has done a lot of free research on this. In most cases, organisations just need to develop a simple user interface and build a dictionary to create a solution useful for India.