corporate diary leaders speak
50th issue special
iClassroom Makes the Process of Learning Objective and Collaborative www.edurite.com
Srikanth Iyer COO, Manipal K-12 Education
Can you elaborate on the foundations and philosophy of Edurite Technologies? The foundation of the company rests on the desire to create a comprehensive education environment catering to diverse requirements. Our objective was to create new initiatives and opportunities for teachers and students. Manipal K-12 Education (Formerly Edurite Technologies) today is one of the leaders in the field of technology-enablededucation having carved a niche for itself in this space over nine years. Over time, it has strongly established itself across different educational verticals - and has been fulfilling diverse learning needs. From Schools to after School Tutorials, Higher Education to Learning Aids like ICTs, CDs and DVDs to Spoken English programs, Manipal K-12 Education provides an across-the-board learning experience to students and encourages progressive learning. 52
www.digitalLEARNING.in
The school going population is going to increase drastically from 220 million to 540 million in the coming years. There are only 10 lakh schools to cater to the school going population. What role do you see yourself playing in the current scenario? The focus of Manipal K-12 Education has been on promoting new schools under the Manipal School brand name across the country. Manipal K-12 Education has a very high quality management team which works on providing standardised teacher training, technology-driven English medium curricula and guaranteed learning outcomes affordable to the middle class, which aspires to high quality English medium education. What sets these schools apart are their affordable annual tuition fees, excellent and trained technology-enabled teachers and best corporate practices. In all, our K-12 schools development model renders scalable, affordable and capable response to the above scenario. Can you elaborate on how your company is serving the cause of integrating Information and Communication Technology in education? The USP of our supplementary multimedia tools is that they are balanced and do not impose what is known as ‘cognitive overload’ on teachers or students. Moreover our curriculum mapped content is thoroughly indigenous and designed for Indian classrooms within the local contexts. Right from identifying difficult learning areas, creating storyboards, designing graphics and animation to voice-overs, recording, video-shoots and teacher- training, we have developed impressive in-house capability.
Our iClassroom (ICT) solution has been conceptualised keeping in view the educational setting of the future. The iClassroom makes the process of learning, Objective and Collaborative. It offers school and higher education students and teachers a rich collection of new and interesting animations, facts, diagrams and more. This interactive dimension immensely aids in achieving the objectives of a subject and makes learning a truly engaging, enjoyable and illuminating process. How successful have you been in providing interactive classroom solutions to schools? Can you share with us some of your success stories. In January 2008, we introduced ICT-driven “open, multimedia database and customisable” services package, under the brand name DigitAlly, offering mapped classroom content of the ICSE, CBSE, IGCSE and IBO examination boards, together with its fully-wired iClassrooms installed in schools under the BOOT (build, own, operate and transfer) model. Our new i-Classrooms, equipped with DigitAlly software, received with great enthusiasm by more than 250 K-12 school managements across the country other than 3000+ schools who uses our content. Are there any Public Private Partnerships in which you have indulged in or you wish to enter in the future? Are you looking at acquiring schools and come up with your own brand? After the successful activation of the first Manipal School in Mysore (Manipal Sharada Public School) in the academic year 2009-10, we recently launched Manipal School at Mangalore. We are certainly open to acquire more schools in the coming years. \\