BW EDUCATION OCT 2022

Maheshwari, co-founder) and I achievements? or so and are rapidly expanding
are not afraid to get our hands Earlier this year, University Living our footprint in North America,
dirty and sit with the team to help clocked in $300 million GMV, Europe & South East Asia.
resolve issues at the ground level. with $100 million alone last year.
We currently have a 10 per cent
What are some of your recent In fact, we have plans on doing market share worldwide with a 35
$10 million in revenue next year per cent share in India – some-
BW EDUCATION OCTOBER 2022 51 thing we plan on increasing to 50
per cent by the end of 2023.

We’ve also been expanding as
a team. We are now 180+ people
strong and continue to grow.

How do awards and titles such
as Edutech 2022 impact your
work?
They motivate us and the team
tremendously. It’s a true testament
of all of hard work coming to
fruition. While awards and
titles keep us motivated to push
harder, faster and better; we still
ensure that we keep our focus on
creating a holistic student-centric
accommodation experience. Like
we keep telling our team - Miles to
go before we sleep!

What are your future plans for
growth?
• We are aiming and working

tirelessly towards achieving US$
10 million revenue in the next
12-18 months.
• Expansion in North America,
Europe and South East Asia to
get more aggressive and we’re
aiming at deeper market pene-
tration.
• As we rapidly expand our reach,
we are hiring resources and
expanding internally as well.
• We want to hire people who are
looking to build a career and not
just looking for a regular 9-5.

What is your advice for budding
entrepreneurs in the edutech
sector?
Build a product that addresses
a need, hustle hard, learn from
mistakes, get up, evolve, adapt,
enhance and move ahead. Don’t
worry about valuations; rather,
concentrate on creating value.

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BEST EDUTECH SOLUTION FOR K-12

Symphony In
Schools

Dharini Upadhyaya, Co-founder and Co-CEO, Furtados School of Music,
sensed the gap in music education space and evolved a model that would
bring joy and build confidence among a large number of students

Dharini Upadhyaya

BW EDUCATION OCTOBER 2022 52 WWW.BWEDUCATION.COM

Achild picking up next step for a music instrument engage the child, to assess wheth-
guitar strum- company too. And, Upadhyaya er the child is playing it right.
ming or learning says, “Because we were bankers,
classical vocal making a business case came very Response
music because the naturally to us.” Upadhyaya shares that people
parents thought were enthralled by the concept,
of putting her in a hobby class is Building the enterprise and excited about setting of music
a matter of hobby, not a formal Doing research on music lab in the school. “But like with
music education. True, there is education in India, Upadhyaya every other concept, there were
formal structure of getting a de- says it was a “completely virgin some early adapters and some
gree in music and dance wherein landscape”. There was no followers. Some large schools
an individual student, at their own curriculum, no structure. What quickly adapted but it required
initiative, appears for exams and was taught depended on the a lot of hard work convincing
graduates. But music education at music teacher in the school. If the educators how this will work,” she
school eludes the majority. teacher changed, what was taught explains.
also changed. Also, unlike BEd
Dharini Upadhyaya, a banker to teach other subjects, there is Now, Furtados has presence in
by professional, left a flourishing no degree to teach music. Music 200 odd schools in 20 cities in the
career to fill this need. “Music teachers are essentially singers or country, including several Tier II
played a very important role in musicians and they are hired as and III ones. There are various
my life and gave me a lot of peace. teachers. But that degree does not models that they offer. “First is
But I never got an opportunity to empower them to become music where we come and teach lock-
learn anything formally. Fulfilling educators, she describes. stock-and barrel. We have our lab,
corporate ambitions, at one point our curriculum and our teachers.
I realised I wasn’t doing anything In comparison, in several The second model is where our
meaningful. I was doing same countries, music is embedded in service quality team monitors the
thing over and over again and education, children study music as delivery of the programme. Some
there was a constant urge to do part of curriculum and they know schools have very good music
something new,” she says. the language of music. teachers but they need curricu-
lum. We train the existing music
Coffee conversation with It has been a slow but fruitful teacher, assess them and handhold
colleague Tanuja Gomes, hailing journey of building the enterprise. them through the year. Third op-
from the family of music instru- A lot of research went into each tion could be, a school saying, find
ment company Furtados, sparked step, from preparing the curricu- me a music teacher, and give me
the idea of starting a music school. lum, understanding how children your curriculum.”
A music school would be a logical want to learn in an engaged man-
ner, and developing the training Kids get to learn Indian and
We wanted to create and development programme. western vocal, as well as keyboard,
something which was “We wanted to create something guitar and drums. At nursery and
which was genuinely more appli- KG level, there is basic music.
genuinely more cable currently. Today’s generation Among, primary school students,
applicable currently. learns very differently from the keyboard is very popular, and
Today’s generation way we learnt 20 or 30 years ago. as kids transition to secondary
learns very differently They like more interaction and school, guitar and drums start
engagement,” she says, adding that adding to the ‘cool’ quotient and
from the way we they built the programme on the become popular options.
learnt 20 or 30 years basis of that, rewritting rules.”
As regards the cost of music
ago They involved the whole uni- education, Upadhyaya informs
verse of experts in the curriculum that the fee moderately increas-
BW EDUCATION OCTOBER 2022 53 building process and built it in es as every service comes for a
such a way that irrespective of price. “But the cost is like eating
whether the child lives in Luc- two burgers a month. If the child
know or London, the content learns the same thing outside
would be same. school, he would be paying man-
ifold times more than what he is
The teacher training pro- paying to the school.” She is proud
grammes was imparted to music that the programmes are built in
teachers to empower them with such an inclusive way that a large
teaching methodology. Furtados number of learners can benefit.
also digitised the whole process to
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BEST EDUTECH SOLUTION FOR K-12

LEAD-ing The
Way To Quality

Education

Sumeet Mehta, along with Smita Deorah began LEAD as a school with 14
students in a village on the outskirts of Ahmedabad in 2012. It was here that

the duo put into practice the lessons they gathered from observing school
systems worldwide

India has the largest school-going population Planning (ERP) system that included academics,
in the world and a vast majority of these which was missing in most administrative school
students go to schools in India’s small towns. systems available at the time.
Unfortunately, the quality of education differs
vastly from region to region. Infrastructure, With schools across India now open again and stu-
resources and pedagogy can strong effect stu- dents back in physical classrooms, the School Edtech
dent learning outcomes. Without the right tools and segment is poised for accelerated growth across mar-
opportunities, talent gets lost. kets; and LEAD is on track to bring innovation and
transformation to these institutions through deeply
LEAD was set up to with the aim to bring these researched curriculum, pedagogy and technology-en-
tools and therefore, opportunity to children studying abled teaching-learning.
in small towns so that they could have access to the
same quality education that their peers in metros do. Benchmark for success
“We strongly believe that by transforming schools
where children spend 6 - 7 hours each day, India will Earlier this year, LEAD became India’s first School
be able to fully reap its demographic dividend” says Edtech unicorn by raising $100 million in a series-E
Mehta. round led by WestBridge Capital and GSV Ventures.
After having raised $70 million in previous rounds
To develop LEAD’s Integrated School System, the led by WestBridge Capital, GSV Ventures and Ele-
co-founders realised that, in a resource-constrained var Equity. “Our business model is firmly rooted in
environment, they needed creativity, a strong founda- the school system. Our proprietary, fully integrated
tion and a principles-first approach. LEAD went on School Edtech system not only improves student
to set up a curriculum team to combat lack of skilled learning outcomes, but also ensures operational excel-
teachers and developed a school Enterprise Resource lence and efficiency for schools, boosts teacher skills

BW EDUCATION OCTOBER 2022 54 WWW.BWEDUCATION.COM

and productivity, and helps better engage parents.” LEAD was set up to with the
In essence, LEAD’s Integrated School System serves aim to bring these tools and
as a replacement for the many disparate, piecemeal
solutions traditionally available for schools. therefore, opportunity to
children studying in small
”Globally, we are one of the few Edtech companies towns so that they could have
to offer a mastery guarantee. We have been able to access to the same quality
deliver over 1.5 years of English proficiency growth in education that their peers in
a year through our program 'ELGA' (English Lan-
guage and General Awareness), which teaches lan- metros do
guage as a skill. Last year, despite school closures due
to Covid, we were able to ensure overall improvement
in student performance levels by more than 20 per
cent.” Adding, “We have experienced strong adoption

BW EDUCATION OCTOBER 2022 55 of our Integrated School System in the last (AMJ)
quarter: our best ever. We will continue to focus
on our growth strategy, and will soon be launching
products that will further strengthen our leadership
position in the School Edtech segment.”

The 2022 batch of LEAD Class 10 CBSE students
has broken many records, despite Covid-driven learn-
ing losses. 127 LEAD students have scored above
90 per cent; and 15 LEAD students have achieved a
perfect score of 100 per cent in at least one subject.
Overall, the Class 10 students have achieved a 23 per
cent jump in scores from beginning of the year to
Board exam results - a staggering feat for students of
affordable and low-fee schools in small towns.

Awards and recognition
It’s been a journey of deep learning and innovation
that continues even today. With more than 3500
partner schools, crossing 1.4 million students, LEAD
is poised for accelerated growth as the world’s third
largest School Edtech company.

For Co-founder, Mehta, what matters the most is
that with LEAD, students are able to gain confidence
to succeed in life by building skills of the future such
as communication, collaboration and critical think-
ing. Awards, while not being the central goal, do help
in multiple ways: by making it possible for the success
stories of our students to reach a wider audience; by
raising awareness of the potential of School Edtech
to solve for the core of India’s Education sector; and
by encouraging our teams to double down on LEAD’s
mission of making excellent learning accessible and
affordable for every child in India.

Advice on entrepreneurship
Education is a double bottom line sector. Edtech
entrepreneurs must be clear about why they are in
the space and what their larger purpose is, beyond
valuations or other vanity metrics.

WWW.BWEDUCATION.COM

BEST E-LEARNING COMPANY OF THE YEAR

Growing
Unit By Unit

TechBairn, founded by Ashutosh Kumar Shandilya, originally aimed to teach
technical skills to people but has since grown into an edtech that is now
looking to expand across the country

By Vasudha Mukherjee

TechBairn came into want to grow in this field, do not various educational institutes; and
being around Sep- have the appropriate resources an additional source of income
tember 2019 when and support to pursue such train- by taking incentives from hiring
Ashutosh Shandilya, ing. Shandilya aimed to support partners with ‘Hire With Us’, a
CEO of the start- these students and provide them recruitment initiative.
up, was still in the with endless possibilities in the
IVth year of college. The growth world of electronics. The team of Shandilya believes that their
of the electronic sector had not TechBairn introduced the courses quality learning, affordable
been very vast in India at that of IoT (Internet of Things), Em- pricing and internship oppor-
point — China covers 80 per cent bedded and Robotics, enrolling tunities post-completion of the
of it whereas the remaining 20 more than 500 students which programme helps them stand out
per cent has been covered by other proved to be a grand success for in the market. They also have a
countries. Shandilya, finding this them at that time. community-based learning sys-
gap, set out to provide training in tem, providing an open platform
the growing field with the support B2B, B2C business model for self-growth and exchange of
of his lecturers. knowledge. With more than 30
TechBairn is backed and live projects based on real-world
When TechBairn had just start- incubated by Microsoft, issues that require industrial
ed there were not many institutes Amazon and Startup India. The implementation of knowledge,
providing the skill enhancement bootstrapped edutech has two TechBairn provides learners with
in this area. Shandilya states, streams of income, with a third hands-on experience of the skill
“They [institutes] just knew how project currently underway. Their and knowledge acquired during
to exploit their customers by main source of revenue is B2C the programme.
charging them huge sums of mon- (Business to Consumer), done
ey. I aimed at covering the gap through student subscription. Growing with the pandemic
between the netizens and The branch source of income
the electronic sector by upskilling is B2B (Business to Business), After launching some of its
the level.” Many students who done through collaborations with products and courses online,
the company witnessed a good
BW EDUCATION OCTOBER 2022 56
WWW.BWEDUCATION.COM

response from a large-scale down due to the Covid-19 pan- The team of
audience. As Shandilya puts it, demic was a taxing time for TechBairn
“After realising the fact that we TechBairn as well. The electronic introduced the
could cover a large-scale audience mode of study was not possi- courses of Internet of
via transforming into an online ble to be conducted via online Things, Embedded
service mode, we expanded our mode of classes because practical and Robotics,
business into the market. Our knowledge plays a crucial role in enrolling more than
product was much needed to fulfil understanding the mechanisms of 500 students which
the depleted needs of the students the work. “When the Covid wave proved to be a grand
who wanted to establish a career hit the country, two of our batches success for them at
in the field of electronics. IT has were still in running, we had to that time.
always been a progressive field so convert it into an online mode of
we knew that our products would study as no other option was left.
do pretty well in the market and It became complex to manage
it turned out to be a great success, things but somehow, we were able
surpassing the expectations.” to pull it off with the support of
our team members and introduc-
However, the period of lock-

BW EDUCATION OCTOBER 2022 57 ing courses which could also be
understood well via online mode”
he elaborates.

Going forward, the edutech
startup plans to collaborate with
as many universities and colleges
as possible and not restrict them-
selves to territorial boundaries
but work on global expansion. On
the content end, TechBairn will be
introducing new courses that are
industry-relevant

Advice on entrepreneurship

Before getting into anything one
needs to make sure that they
have done their market research
efficiently which is a prime factor
for success in the world of startups
and entrepreneurship.

“Know about your competitors
and what kind of products will do
well in the market. Read books,
listen to podcasts and interact
with people with experience in
order to boost your career in a
startup,” Shandilya says.

WWW.BWEDUCATION.COM

BEST EXAM PREP COMPANY OF THE YEAR

“Building For
Bharat”

Anil Nagar, Founder & CEO, Adda247, hails from Dankaur village in UP.
Cracking IIT-JEE, he did his BTech from IIT-BHU. But, in the process,
he realised how tough it is for students from small places to get quality
education and guidance. That proved to be the driving force for his present

endeavour

By Upasana

What was your inspiration students from all kinds of back- areas struggle to find employment
behind starting your venture? grounds. In a display of prophetic in the private sector, even though
What gaps were you looking to vision and deep understanding they may be extraordinarily talent-
fill? of the industry, our company ed in fields like math or science.
The trigger came in 2010 heralded a significant transition Given proper direction, these
when both Saurabh Bansal in 2016 by shifting to an online individuals can also succeed in
(Co-founder& COO) and I met learning platform under the brand competitive exams for government
and had the same aspiration name Adda247. The launch of employment because the hiring
of helping out students by internet services in 2016 at a very procedure is quite organised. We
guiding and teaching them. affordable cost helped us to take saw people suffering due to a lack
This mutual synergy between our business online with an aim of guidance and quality education.
us led us to create Career to help students from all across We wanted to do something for
Power and we embarked upon the country to prepare for govern- people like us, who came from
our entrepreneurial journeys ment exams by offering quality smaller towns, because 85 per cent
together. Within six years, we online courses. Secondly, with the of our users are from Tier II, III
had established more than 100 online model, as founders of the and IV cities. Thus, all our offer-
branches of Career Power across company we were able to regulate ings are centred on ‘Building for
India. But despite the fact that the quality of courses offered to Bharat’. We began by addressing
the business was profitable, as the students which was difficult to education issues in towns and vil-
founders we felt that the offline manage in case of a large number lages, with our goal to democratise
route was limiting our dream of of offline centres across the education by making it accessible
reaching every nook and cranny of country. and affordable to Bharat’s youth.
the country.
We had noticed that due to How do you stand out among
We wanted to help create a limited English proficiency or lack competitors in the industry?
level-playing field by providing of exposure to larger cities, many
all kinds of learning solutions to young people in towns and rural Adda247 is an edutech company

BW EDUCATION OCTOBER 2022 58 WWW.BWEDUCATION.COM

where education comes before for engaging teachers). We (primary) till date from marquee
technology in a true sense. The are one of the rare profitable/ investors like WestBridge Capital,
whole Adda247 business revolves sustainable companies in the Info Edge (India), Asha Impact,
around live classes imparted by edutech ecosystem in India and JM Financial. Adda247 is a
full-time teachers, where the are growing rapidly. broadly profitable/sustainable
complete learning experience is organisation, the investments
owned by Adda247 (as opposed What’s your funding and busi- are centred around developing
to having part time/freelancer ness model? a cutting-edge technology and
or a marketplace kind of model building product differentiations.
Adda247 has raised $20 million The company also aims to invest
BW EDUCATION OCTOBER 2022 59 the raised funds in content
creation (video/text content in
multiple languages), fruits of
which are realised in a longer
duration.

Adda247 operates on a high-
ly viable freemium model. On
the Adda247 App, the company
provides a lot of free content to
students for the preparation of
their exams, which covers basic
elements of preparation. Adda247
also offers premium paid cours-
es which are exam specific and
comprehensive in nature. The
paid content includes live learning
courses, on-demand video courses,
online mock tests, e-books and
physical books. Adda247 as a com-
pany is a content focussed brand
and wants to be a trusted mentor
in a student’s end to end exam
preparation journey.

How do titles and awards such
as Edutech 2022 impact your
work?

I think such prestigious awards
act as a big motivation to all
entrepreneurs. Essentially, it’s a
recognition of your work by the
reputed third party and validation
of your business in some sense.
Such awards also tell you that your
work is creating an impact in the
society and probably you are on
the right track.

Any advice for budding entrepre-
neurs in the edutech sector?

Be mentally ready to face chal-
lenges and failures. Your focus,
self-belief and persistence are go-
ing to be the key to your success.
In the end, it’s a very fulfilling
journey full of learnings.

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BEST FINTECH COMPANY IN EDUCATION

Zero Interest
Loan To Pursue
Dreams

Varun Chopra, Co-Founder & CEO at Eduvanz, talks about accessibility of
education in India, contribution of his organisation and the road ahead

By Himanshu Ojha

How do you see the contribution give loans to the right kind of We have been typically a lender
of your organisation in making candidate increases because you mostly in the last four years of our
education accessible to every- start understanding who needs a journey but now we have launched
one? loan for what kind of purpose and a new technology product like
what kind of course. learners platform — a community
Eduvanz is essentially a lender for students in India where stu-
for learners. So, we work We have built no-cost EMI dents can come to talk and learn
in partnership with various which is essentially no interest more about education. We have
educational institutes and build loan for students and through built an AI-driven platform where
a technology where students this you give them the power to students come and do their skill
who are enrolling in these learn a course. For example, if assessment, know what they are
institutes can get a no-cost EMI it's a loan of Rs 2 lakh, instead of good at, and where they should do
loan at the time of enrolment at paying 2 lakh upfront they can pay the course.
the click of a button. We have Rs 10,000 for 20 months. So that
created a very large ecosystem of makes more and more students So it is not about just being a
banking partners and institutes eligible for quality education and lender now; it's becoming an eco-
on the other side and created a when they get education, they system for all kinds of learners to
technology to connect them end have an ability to get employed come on a single platform and get
to end. When you partner with and built career footprints — that access to every facility and then
these institutes your ability to is the role our organisation plays. get financed.

BW EDUCATION OCTOBER 2022 60 WWW.BWEDUCATION.COM

Because
Eduvanz can
see what kind
of future
income you
can get, and
how strong
your career
is, we provide
financial
support to
students by
giving them
lending limits

We work in How do you make sure that that integrates directly with the
partnership with education loans for deserving institutes and the minute student
various educational students do not get delayed, jeop- is talking to an institute counsellor
institutes and build a ardising their chances? requesting for loan, the institute
technology where can, at the click of a button, pass
students who are There are two parts to this. First on the details of that student to
enrolling on these is how much you can approve and us and our algorithm on a real-
institutes can get a who all you are approving for and time basis can provide an answer
no-cost EMI loan at second, how fast you can approve. to them whether the loan will be
the time of enrolment These are the two problems that sanctioned or not.
at the click of a both the students and institutes
have from the financial partners. How is Eduvanz different from
button We have built a very strong other financial institutions in the
technology infrastructure not just country?
BW EDUCATION OCTOBER 2022 61 for our borrowers and students
but also for our institute partners. Eduvanz essentially targets a very
They can now integrate directly specific consumer segment. We
with our technology system using look at the population that we
APIs and on a real-time basis. A call a learner segment or Young
student while they are talking to India. People who are taking
the counsellors of the institute our loans are of two types — one
can be told whether the loan will who is in school and college and
be given to them or not. We have the other who are already on the
taken all the manual part away journey of their career. In India
and we have built a technology loan is traditionally given based
on your financial background but
because Eduvanz can see what
kind of future income you can
get, and how strong your career
is, we provide financial support to
students by giving them lending
limits so that they can spend it on
education-related expenses.

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BEST ONLINE TUTORING COMPANY OF THE YEAR

Filling The
Gaps

Sumesh Nair comes from the tier-II city of Coming from a background where
Thiruvananthapuram in Kerala. He has people lack proper awareness about
seen his people in his surroundings strug- getting suitable jobs, Sumesh Nair,
gle to get meaningful decent jobs because Co-Founder, Board Infinity, through
of less awareness about how to get into the company is trying to train people
different kinds of jobs and how to prepare for interviews and provide them the
for that. The first company that he joined is called Mu skills which is needed for specific
Sigma, a company in data analytics space. This com- kinds of job roles
pany had a very interesting model of training freshers
and deploying them in projects which they take from By Upasana
clients in US and other countries. He was inspired by
this process-oriented model which was creating a lot Standing out
of employability. Most entrepreneurs who enter this segment don’t
know how to run an education company, believes
Mu Sigma also has a university within its fold, Nair. “You can’t just pull up a syllabus and mark 20
called Mu Sigma University, and Nair, one of the people and expect that everybody is going to learn at
youngest trainers there, took a liking to training and the same pace. Our methodologies and processes that
development. Wherever he worked after that stint, we run are very scientific, in a sense that each and
he was very involved in training and development every aspect of learning is being measured, recorded
activities of the teams that he worked with. He and and worked upon. Improvement points are suggested
co-founder Abhay Gupta were passionate about the for the students based on that,” underlines Nair. “Sec-
problem statement which is around employability ondly, there is a lot of effort from our side to ensure
and how to go about solving this in a scalable way. that people are really attending classes and not just
Gupta comes from Kanpur and has seen similar buying the course and sitting. Also, we personalise
trends – people lacking career awareness, not know- the programme to an extent that the companies can
ing where to look for the right set of jobs and how to come and hire people for specific kind of skills after
prepare for it. the programme ends,” he describes. The firm takes the
feedback of the companies also and includes that in
That was the basic premise with which they started the curriculum. It has robust placement services.
and the intervention that they zeroed in on was help-
ing people crack the interviews. Also, how to provide
them the skills for specific kinds of job roles that they
are trying to go for.

BW EDUCATION OCTOBER 2022 62 WWW.BWEDUCATION.COM

“There have been incidents in We personalise the that was momentary. This year,
our firm, where students have programme to an the main challenge is how do you
gone and sat for interviews of reinvent yourself as a company
more than 20 companies. A lot of extent that the or a product to ensure that you
training firms give up after the companies can come are aligned to the current market
4th or 5th interview when a and hire people for right now and to make sure that
person is getting rejected. Many specific kind of skills you are again going on the growth
a times, educational firms tend to after the programme path over a period of time,” says
not treat their customers in the Nair.
right way. This should not be the ends
case,” states Nair. Appreciation
ment and entire learning expe-
The challenges rience delivered so that outcome Nair believes that any recognition
can be achieved, is better com- that they get is just a momentary
As per Nair, the challenge is that pared to various companies.” thing. In the last five years that
if you keep taking more and more they have been in this industry,
number of students, how do you Dealing with Covid they have won various awards –
keep serving them the right way. The challenge during Covid times both national and international.
“At some level, we have been able was understanding how to work The key point is that awards does
to do that better off than a lot of from home. “Sometimes, meeting not stop one from working harder
companies. Of course, the learning a customer was a challenge. But and harder. “It is just a momen-
experience that we have developed tary appreciation which actually
and given through our Board In- helps team morale. The company
finity tech platform is far superior gets more visibility and the team
to some of the alternatives which gets happy. Awards give recogni-
is out there,” highlights Nair. He tion and appreciation to people
adds, “Aspects around career who are really working very hard,”
outcomes, personalisation engage- states Nair..

BW EDUCATION OCTOBER 2022 63 WWW.BWEDUCATION.COM

DIGITAL LEARNING COMPANY OF THE YEAR

“Sharing
Anecdotes Helps

In Learning”

Anurag Vaish, Founder & CEO, Mentza, talks about the importance of
learning through conversation, the impact of live audio community on society

and why his platform is different from traditional learning

By Himanshu Ojha

What is the whole idea behind a great platform for people to very parent-child thing. You have
the live audio community? talk together and learn from each to do a course and also need to
other without only listening to a step out of your place. From all
The problem is that we don’t produced podcast where you have the learning experiences we know
talk and learn anymore. This is no role. But in a live conversation, that unstructured is the best way
how we used to learn. I believe everybody has a role. We are to learn. The structure is where
conversations are the best way to probably the only platform in the you start feeling pressure, wherein
exchange information. Live audio world where everyone has the there is a teacher and you have to
gave an opportunity for people in freedom to join any conversation. answer, and you will be evaluated.
different communities to come But if you see other platforms All these things are not required.
and exchange stories with each nobody can just be a speaker When you are in an unstructured
other and in the process, share on their own. In some way, we environment it doesn’t matter who
some anecdotes and experiences are creating this democratised is a teacher and who is a learner;
which help in learning. Now, environment. everyone feels equal. However,
this learning could be about art, that environment doesn’t exist
music, science, marketing and Why do we need platforms like today.
startups. For instance, one of the an audio community to learn
biggest thing happening on our English if we already have coach- Even in a podcast someone is
platform is that people are using ing, schools and tutors? talking and you are listening, you
live audio with guiding coaches have nothing to contribute to that
to learn how to speak English All the things you talked about are conversation apart from listening.
confidently. I think live audio is very structured in nature. It’s a This free space where people can
talk and learn from each other is
BW EDUCATION OCTOBER 2022 64
WWW.BWEDUCATION.COM

missing on most platforms. Our platform here plays an I think live audio is a
important role where you can great platform for
Which part of India is your tar- have a conversation with a person people to talk
get audience? sitting in any part of the world. together and learn
from each other
I think we are a little far from Tell us the impact of your plat-
rural India, where it will take a form on Indian society. without only listening
little while, but we do want to to a produced podcast
address both rural and urban On our platform our members
India as well as the Tier-II cities. feel that people are experiencing where you have no
If you see the difference in a good freedom, otherwise, everyone is role
conversation somebody is giving telling them what they cannot
and somebody is seeking, a lot of do. For the first time, they are
our givers may come from bigger experiencing these conversations
towns but our seekers are from that they couldn’t have ever
Tier-II towns because that is imagined being part of.
where people are missing good
conversation. We have seen education change
over the years — earlier we used
When I was growing up nobody to sit in a class and teachers used
got a good conversation. So for us, to leave after 45 minutes; On the
Tier-II cities are very important. other hand, now we have a new

BW EDUCATION OCTOBER 2022 65 kind of education where there
is a lot more engagement. To
me, people in India are finally
experiencing themselves as part of
the learning process rather than
passive consumers of content.
People now don’t need to be
in an elite circle to have good
conversations. They can just join
the conversation and nobody can
stop them.

How you are planning to expand
your geographical presence in
India?
It takes very little to expand.
Ours is an audio platform and
for us, the best thing to do is add
more and more languages to our
conversation and that too is easy.
We just need to switch to other
Indian languages. We already have
Gujarati, Malayalam, Bengali,
Tamil and Hindi conversations
happening. So for us to expand
across India, it is very easy. I think
that is the way to go in the future
also.

WWW.BWEDUCATION.COM

DIGITAL LEARNING COMPANY OF THE YEAR

Using Tech, Tracking
Child’s Learning
Journey

Divya Lal, Founder & CEO, Fliplearn Education, describes how schools can
gauge the performance of an individual student, and of the class, with the

help of technological platform developed by it

BW EDUCATION OCTOBER 2022 66 WWW.BWEDUCATION.COM

What was your inspiration be- day mundane tasks like manually Photographs by FREEPIK
hind starting your venture? What creating homework, assessments
gap were you looking to fill? and other learning avenues and Profile designed for each student
While there have been many then later review the student’s provides for a proactive and
Edutech solutions that claim to attempts on the assigned tasks. scientific approach to measure
enhance the learning experience a child’s learning progress in
and improve the learning outcomes To ensure that the everyday different subjects and individual
of students, the use of data and workload of the teachers is re- topics, while highlighting on
analytics to substantiate a child’s duced, the platform offers built in their strengths and weaknesses
actual learning progress has been features like One Click homework, simultaneously. The learning
overlooked. automated grading, and ready- profile also serves as an ever-ready
made content which the teacher report card for an educator to
If I were to ask a school head, can use to enhance the teaching know instant results on a child’s
how is the median of the class experience and significantly reduce progress without having to wait
doing and what are some of the her daily workload. for assessments to take place. The
learning objectives you are driv- One Click Homework feature is
ing — the only parameter to know How are you standing out among unprecedented, using which the
of learning outcomes is through competitors in the industry? teachers can share homework
periodic assessments. And there is just in a single click from the
no time to go back — what’s done Fliplearn’s Learning Transforma- readymade homework packages
is done, and it’s time to move on to tion System as a teaching and available on the app.
the next topic. learning delivery platform is
novel and unprecedented. It aims What challenges did you face and
Fliplearn aims to bridge this gap to provide a 3600 omni channel how you overcame them?
using advanced data and analytics experience through the Fliplearn
to build on a comprehensive ‘Stu- app for all the stakeholders Making the product super
dent Learning Profile’ focussing on addressing their pain points in simple and intuitive to use by the
a child’s learning journey. It does relation to learning and homework educators and learners across the
this by tracking academic strengths which had been unaddressed country where even those who
and improvement areas, monitor- hitherto by any other edutech are not well versed with mobile
ing everyday learning progress at solution available in the market. apps and web usage was one of the
subject and chapter level and the By bringing together the power of major challenges that we overcome
overall learning progress of a child data and analytics, the platform together as team. We ensured that
relative to the class and peers. We aims to create personalised and we were continually collecting
provide a very detailed academic adaptive learning solutions for feedback from our end users,
profile. A teacher gets a quick class students, using which the schools iterating fast on the inputs received
summary – as to in which topics can deep dive and get to know on simplifying usage and ensured
is class median low. Which are the their actual learning challenges. that these inputs were applied to
questions that the majority of the The technology and automation the app and handed over to the
class is getting wrong. For the child pertaining to assigning and end users in the regular releases.
and the parent, there are support grading homework, assessments Cross platform technologies like
mechanism built in, with safe spac- and project work provided by ‘Flutter’ was a great tool that we
es to test themselves, with gamified the platform also reduce the used to make the end-to-end cycle
learning. There are different levels teacher workload by 50 per cent, fast. In a span of 9 months we grew
of complexities provided, so that thereby increasing their efficiency from 15,000 users to 90,000 daily
smarter kids who get bored, can and enabling them to focus on active users who are spending on
move to a higher level. other aspects of teaching. The an average ~100 minutes daily on
comprehensive Student Learning our platform assigning homework,
The teachers also benefit. With assessments and other activities.
the help of intricate data points,
the platform enables the teachers WWW.BWEDUCATION.COM
to plough this feedback almost
instantly at the click of a button.
We believe that the teachers should
spend most of their time in deliv-
ering qualitative teaching and a
personalised focus to the students.
But unfortunately, due to lack of
user-friendly and smart solutions
in the edutech market most of the
teachers must put in long hours
and a lot of their energy in every-

BW EDUCATION OCTOBER 2022 67

EDUTECH CEO OF THE YEAR AND EMERGING
EDUTECH STARTUP OF THE YEAR

Content-Rich
Computer Drive

Ravi Bhushan, Founder & CEO, BrightCHAMPS, learnt from experience how
crucial tech education is for a student’s growth. His venture strives to fulfil
that need in education

When he with next-gen life skills. We intend student dashboard to continuously
entered IIT- to nurture the hidden potential check for understanding and
BHU, Ravi and inclinations that kids innately retention through fun quizzes,
Bhushan have and groom them into tech- puzzles, projects, and assessments.
was one of nology leaders, innovators, artists, All our gamification features
the few stu- entrepreneurs and scientists of across the product are geared
dents there who had never really tomorrow.” To this end, Bright- towards testing learning
been meaningfully exposed to or CHAMPS offers carefully curated outcomes. This single-minded
used computers or technology. But courses in coding, Vedic Maths, dedication to ensuring deep
by the time he finished his com- basics of money, emotional well- learning for each child is what has
puter science degree, he had won ness, robotics, AI and more. The helped us maintain an industry-
every major coding competition thrust is on newer technologies as leading NPS of 70 and a CSAT
across the country. “The opportu- they come up. score of 4.8/5.”
nities that opened up for me once
I became proficient at tech made He further describes, “We cur- He further says their venture
me realise the powerful way in rently have four verticals - coding, doesn’t lure parents with false
which it can level the playing field financial literacy, robotics, and sales pitches or promises of their
for youngsters,” says Bhushan, communications. All our verti- wards becoming tech billion-
adding, “The more time I’ve spent cals largely offer live, one-on-one naires. “Instead, we focus on ex-
in technology, the more I realise classes, to enable rapid progress plaining to them why tech under-
that traditional education systems and hyper-customisation. We do standing and skills are necessary
around the world are not keeping have some pair and group classes, no matter what they pursue in
pace with the rapid advance- but the majority of our classes the future. We believe that when
ments across important emerging continue to be one-on-one.” you treat parents with respect,
technologies like robotics, AI/ they respect and trust you. Our
ML, cryptocurrencies, blockchain, The differentiator sales model is built on truth, not
Web3, and so many others. So this So, what sets apart this startup dream-selling, which is why we’ve
is the gap we’re trying to fill.” from other edutech players? had negligible drop-outs from our
Bhushan describes, “The biggest programmes, from the start.”
And this is the gap in skill-sets differentiator is our extreme focus
that BrightCHAMPS intends to on learning outcomes. We’ve He narrates that the team con-
fill. “We aspire to become the created many nodes within the sciously chose to grow slowly but
one-stop-destination to equip kids classes as well as the app and sustainably. He justifies the stand,
saying, “Choosing a slow, sustain-
BW EDUCATION OCTOBER 2022 68
WWW.BWEDUCATION.COM

Choosing a slow,
sustainable strategy
even after raising a
healthy investment

... was the best
decision we could
have ever made

able strategy even after raising a Global Hackathon for 3,000 for 10,000 kids by SmartKid.
healthy investment did raise some kids from 30+ countries in the 6 Thirty-six of them won across
eyebrows, but in retrospect, was to 16 age bracket. The kids com- categories, while 50 others
the best decision we could have peted across 10 categories, de- made it to the SmartKid merit
ever made…. Dream-selling could pending on their grade and skill list!
have helped us grow exponentially level. The final 3,000 kids went - August 2022: BrightCHAMPS
faster, but we believe that working through a 2-day boot camp, announced the acquisition of
in education is an honour and we which included fireside talks Singapore-based communica-
must behave honourably when and debates around innovations tions and English live-learning
we’re in it. And so we persevere.” in technology, masterclasses, platform Schola.tv in a $15
and, of course, the main coding million cash & stock deal.
The perseverance has shown in competition.
several milestones in the last one - Apr 2022: Launch of Robo- Advice To edupreneurs
year, among them being: CHAMPS, the robotics vertical
- Dec 2021: BrightCHAMPS ac- of BrightCHAMPS. While reiterating that every
- June 2022: BrightCHAMPS entrepreneur has to chart their
quired Education10x, a financial announced a $100 million own path, Bhushan says, “Some
literacy live-learning platform corpus to make edutech acquisi- key fundamentals that can help
for kids. tions across the US, UK, Middle one get started on this path are
- Feb 2022: Sent 21 students to East and North Africa (MENA), - thoroughly research the gap or
the International Kids Coding Southeast Asia (SEA), and India problem you have set out to solve,
Competition, and 8 of them in FY2023. know your audience, be prudent
came back with international - July 2022: Almost 1,200 Bright- with your finances, be open to
ranking and outstanding diplo- CHAMPS kids participated in feedback and harsh criticism, and
mas MetaHack, a global hackathon lastly never be afraid to fail and
- March 2022: BrightCHAMPS start over.”
launched <Code/Decode> a
WWW.BWEDUCATION.COM
BW EDUCATION OCTOBER 2022 69

EMERGING EDUTECH STARTUP OF THE YEAR

Lessons
From
Ambala &
Australia

Tarun Saini,
Founder and
CEO, Vidyakul
Learning Space,
had a first-hand
experience of
lack of quality
education and
wanted to fill that

gap

BW EDUCATION OCTOBER 2022 70 WWW.BWEDUCATION.COM

Tarun Saini, a farm- edutech but somewhere the gap to Saini, “The results our students
er’s son, grew up in was only widening. Today we see achieved were beyond our expec-
Pounti Village in education being split into CBSE tations in all the three states – a
Ambala District of board and state boards, with 70 clear indication that we are head-
Haryana, and did per cent students going to state ed in the right direction to create
his schooling about board schools. These students are the large-scale social impact that
30 km away from home, from a deprived of proper schools, teach- we hope to.”
Hindi medium school. Apathy ers, infra etc.”
towards education and distance Saini provides the following
from school meant that many Challenges statistics to prove this:
students would drop out. How- Vidyakul’s target audience are • Bihar Board: state toppers - 3;
ever, nudged by a teacher, who these Bharat students who right
identified immense potential in now do not have access to good district toppers – 11
his student, Saini went ahead and schools and cannot afford other • Uttar Pradesh Board:
applied to Bachelor’s in Business available online options as well.
course at Monash University, Mel- Class 10: state toppers - 7
bourne, Australia, and graduated Despite the noble intentions, Class 12: state toppers – 8
from there. reaching the target audience in • Gujarat Board:
tier 3-4 cities was not easy for Class 10: state toppers 4
The inspiration behind starting the team. Saini says, “Most of the Class 12: State toppers 4
Vidyakul was to be able to provide parents of such students are not
something which Saini could not educated, hence decision-making Winning factor
get early on and that was quality is time-taking.” To address the
education. This realisation was challenge, Vidyakul appointed So, what sets Vidyakul apart from
of course not overnight, but Saini sales team that comes from the competitors? Affordable edu-
says that his time in Australia, same background. “They under- cation in regional languages to
interacting with people from dif- stand the mindset and apprehen- students of state boards. “We are
ferent walks of life, and working sions of our audience which helps providing an annual subscription
at different places, got him think- us to interact with them on daily to our students for Rs 3-4,000,
ing, how quality education could basis.” which comes down to 250 per
change a person’s direction. month for 5 subjects. Our content
The other challenge was paying is in vernacular language which
Further, this need was rein- capacity of students. Saini says, helps students to connect and
forced looking at the divide that “Our ticket price is very reason- perform better in academics,”
exists in India. He elaborates, “We able but still students struggle to Saini informs. Vidyakul has also
were seeing so many advance- pay it at once. We allow part-time tied up with NCC to reach out to
ments taking place in the fields payments in such cases.” students enrolled in state boards
of finance, technology, and even and are a part of NCC.
education seeing a steep rise in Vidyakul has fanned out its
operations in Uttar Pradesh, Saini’s advice to others is, “As
As long as the content Bihar and Gujarat, and the Board long as the content being pro-
being provided is results of classes X and XII vided is relatable and affordable,
relatable and this year, the first year for Team the student will enjoy and keep
affordable, the Vidyakul too, were a validation coming back to the platform. The
for their performance. According moment one of the two is not
student will enjoy and aligned, chances are growth can
keep coming back to be stalled.”

the platform. WWW.BWEDUCATION.COM

BW EDUCATION OCTOBER 2022 71

LEARNING APP OF THE YEAR

Tools For
Edu-Business

Bilal Abidi, alumnus WWW.BWEDUCATION.COM
of IIT-Bombay and
London Business
School and CEO, Wise
Leap Technologies
has experience of
developing several new
products. He describes
how his venture
helps other edutech
entrepreneurs scale up
their model

What is the specific need in ed-
ucation that your venture is ful-
filling? How did you identify the
need? Can you briefly describe
the product and your team?
We’re trying to provide the
technical infrastructure that helps
edutech entrepreneurs scale their
online teaching businesses by
reducing overheads and overall
cost of customer acquisition. The
in-person education market is
$2.4 trillion across the world. We
believe a sizable chunk of it will
move online.

BW EDUCATION OCTOBER 2022 72

Online education has opened How did you ensure that your Yes, teachers are
a new dimension in learning and offering would be pedagogically not very
teaching. However, the right tools sound for the concerned age
to run a profitable business were groups? technically
lacking in the market. There were proficient due to
virtually no tools available for Our venture has always been various reasons.
increasing engagement in online laser-focused on helping But what I have
live classes. We saw this as a huge educators. I have relatives who found is that it is a
opportunity in a growing market. are teachers, and Mubeen (co-
founder) is a teacher. We tested product-side
Our first product, Wise, was our products on small cohorts to problem. These
built to automate the operations understand where we might be same teachers use
of running an online business. lacking. Now, we take constant
From admissions to fee collection, feedback from customers to Facebook,
attendance, evaluation and shar- improve our products. YouTube, and
ing session recordings — we raced Whatsapp quite
to ~40,00,000 users in no time. Also, given the fact that there
are many edutech players now, regularly
The second product, Lens, how can school administration,
solves a broader problem. Educa- teachers, and parents assess Our approach is to cut, cut, cut,
tion institutes often lack engage- what is the best technical offer- cut! A button that isn’t necessary?
ment because the teacher cannot ing for students in a given space? Cut it out. Focus on the parts that
control who is paying attention. work, moving parts that teachers
Our product allows you to check Education is not a one size can follow.
who is paying attention and look- fits all market. Every learner
ing away. It empowers you with has different needs. Every What has been the impact of the
nudges and polls that make it easi- educator has different strengths product on the target group? Any
er to communicate. It emulates and weaknesses. Luckily with impact study/ survey you have
the offline experience in the online technological solutions, these done to assess it?
world. This product is currently stakeholders can take a sneak peek We have only done informal
being offered to select institutions of the offering through free trials, studies with cohorts of our
only. demos, demo classes etc. This is customers. We have found that
something which was almost non- people have access to a larger user
Education is not a existent 20 years ago. base when they use our products
one size fits all because of the increased technical
market. Every How receptive are schools to proficiency. They also reduce their
learner has the technology that you have operational overheads because
different needs. developed? Also, the level of of the economic nature of their
Every educator comfort of teachers with technol- product. We plan to compile more
has different ogy would be different. How to detailed studies moving forward.
strengths and develop their technical prowess
weaknesses to impart lessons using new WWW.BWEDUCATION.COM
technologies?
BW EDUCATION OCTOBER 2022 73
Our app was first adopted
by school teachers across the
spectrum. Several government and
private schools use our premium
services too.

Yes, teachers are not very tech-
nically proficient due to various
reasons. But what I have found is
that it is a product-side problem.
These same teachers use Face-
book, YouTube, and Whatsapp
quite regularly.

BEST EXAM PREP COMPANY OF THE YEAR

“Books, The
Core Of Any
preparation”

Avinash Agarwal, Founder Director, Disha Publication, describes his
organisation’s role in enabling students realise their career dream

BW EDUCATION OCTOBER 2022 74 WWW.BWEDUCATION.COM

Enabling students to take out products closer to the options for students passing out
to identify the path masses. But realising the mar- of schools, there is a stagnation in
that is suited to ket need, Agarwal and his team the MBA segment. He attributes
them and where decided to take the next decisive this to the fact that the salaries
they can best do step, from publishing to exam in the last few years for students
value creation is prep space. passing out of B-schools other
one part of the higher education than top bracket have not been
and career puzzle; the second Clearing the basics commensurate with the cost of
piece is helping them prepare to Giving the reason, he says, “Books education. Coupled with that, he
crack the respective competitive are the core of any preparation, be points to the growing inclination
exams so that they can secure it medical, banking, SSC or UPSC. for government jobs in the last
admission to their choice stream But in that ecosystem, the sec- five to seven years, with crores of
and college. Disha, founded by ond layer needed is mentorship. candidates appearing for some of
Avinash Agarwal, is providing pre- There is no clarity among students the exams.
cisely this valuable service. regarding what they want to do
or why they want to do what they At the same time, he is dis-
Agarwal, an alumnus of Man- want to do. We initially started appointed at the huge gap be-
agement Development Institute, with mentorship programmes tween what our higher education
Gurugram, started Disha as an for students. Once the ‘what’ and institutes produce and what the
exam prep book publishing en- ‘why’ becomes clear, the ‘how’ industry requires. “This is why a
terprise. The publication recently becomes clear too.” lot of MTechs and PhDs are doing
completed two decades of service class III jobs also. Crores applying
in providing study material to the Since students need subject- for a peon’s job shows they are not
students pan India. During the and topic-wise guidance, Disha finding appropriate jobs for which
pandemic when most of the pub- stepped in to provide that too, they are qualified.”
lishers were struggling, Disha led making use of the ecosystem of its
the way and published more than expertise. “In our exam prep divi- While the road to 5 trillion
100 new titles in exam prep. In sion, we have micro programmes economy in India will pass
fact Disha collaborated with more wherein, if a student has a prob- through education, but it takes
than 10 new authors, especially in lem in a particular topic, he can immense willpower to bring about
the UPSC segment. buy a small module from us. Being the change in education. Respond-
in publishing business we have ing to the question if the National
Winner of some prestigious access not only to content but an Education Policy will put things in
publishing awards, Disha has ecosystem of expertise with us. We order, he says that it’s the imple-
partnered with celebrities like just had to request the experts to mentation that makes or mars a
Chetan Bhagat and Boman Irani do five-hour or two-hour sessions policy. He says that many of the
with students. All the classes are elements of NEP were also present
“In our exam prep done online.” in the Continuous and Compre-
division, we have hensive Evaluation (CCE) policy
micro programmes The additional advantage of that was scrapped some years ago.
wherein, if a student being in these two allied activities “CCE also lay emphasis on critical
has a problem in a is that being in exam prep book thinking, social and emotional
particular topic, he business the team has access skills, but it was implemented
can buy a small to changing needs if there is a half-heartedly. So how can one
module from us” change in the exam pattern. fault policy if implementation is
half hearted?
Finger on the pulse
Based on constant connect of With a view to encourage stu-
Team Disha with students across dents to adopt the right approach
the country, and based on dif- to learning, Agarwal has also
ferential demand for exam prep penned a number of inspiration-
books of Disha, Agarwal tells that al books, including the recently
while engineering and medicine published fiction novel titled Stop
continue to be most-in demand Being a Maggu!.

BW EDUCATION OCTOBER 2022 75 WWW.BWEDUCATION.COM

Column SKILL DEVELOPMENT COMPANY OF THE YEAR

Education Needs
New-Age Outlook

Siddharth Chaturvedi, Executive VP, AISECT, describes why skills
component in higher education is critical to meet industry need and to reduce
unemployability

BW EDUCATION OCTOBER 2022 76 WWW.BWEDUCATION.COM

The education system The old system where students Market demand
in India received received, memorised and repeated
a much-needed was irrelevant to the new world Skills are considered as the es-
facelift when the and impractical at this point. Stu- sential pillar for employment and
Government of dents were looking to expand their enhanced economic growth of a
India announced a horizons, be critical thinkers, and nation. The persistent industrial
change in the system of education gain practical real-world knowl- market demand for employability
in the light of NEP 2020. This edge and skill-sets that would skills has provided a requirement
came at a juncture when educa- make them employable. to integrate skill-based education
tors and institutes began to recog- in higher education intending to
nise that the old-world structure At AISECT we always believed develop graduates’ future work-
or what Brazilian Educator Paul that information is not synony- ready. Thereby, a considerable
Freire calls the banking model mous with education. Since its in- necessity has been felt to align
of education was not working. ception in 1985, AISECT has been higher education with skill-based
focused on imparting practical ed- education and to incorporate skill-
BW EDUCATION OCTOBER 2022 77 ucation that reaches the grassroots based education as the essential
of India further empowering them part of the higher education
to be skilled, employable youth system. Expanding access to skill-
with an entrepreneurial spirit. based education in higher edu-
When Santosh Choubey started cation can enhance the competi-
AISECT, the basic idea was that tiveness of a nation in the global
there were gaps in scientific tem- world. Countries like Switzerland
perament and worked to bridge and Germany, well renowned
these gaps with an approach for their extensive dual systems
that was practical. At AISECT of vocational education and
we recognise that the strength in training, have attained worldwide
education and knowledge depends recognition.
on the medium that it is imparted.
As one of the first movers in this In a collaborative effort towards
direction, we introduced course improving higher education
curriculums in regional languages, curriculum, universities should
which the NEP recognises and introduce skill-based and realistic
supports. knowledge experiences sharing
systems and new learning tech-
Today the job and skilling in- niques. Higher education institu-
dustry has seen several paradigm tions should build partnerships
shifts. However, one of the major with business industry bodies and
challenges that the job-seeking skill assessment organisations to
population of India is facing today contribute to reforming strategies.
is the mismatch between educa-
tion and employment. The skill Various sectors have
gap is stark between industrial de- reported the
mands and job seekers. Not only
are employers seeking people with availability of job
technical skills, but the pre-req- opportunities but are
uisite also includes soft skills like
communication, critical thinking, met with a lack of
and problem-solving approach, industry-relevant
along with other imperatives like skills, which also
leadership, teamwork, and emo- results in a rising
tional intelligence. It is inevitably unemployment trend
the responsibility of universities
and institutes to invest time and WWW.BWEDUCATION.COM
resources in training, reskilling
and upskilling, and the duty of
the government to have policies
implemented that ensure opportu-
nities to future-proof careers and
make individuals indispensable
assets to companies.

Leaders can come together to India Skills Report 2021, the un- ration (NSDC) and Microsoft with
assess areas that are facing skill employability rate of Indian youth the AISECT Group.
gaps in the industry and institutes stands has increased from 53.79
can bridge this gap by introduc- per cent to 54.1 per cent, as re- NSDC and Microsoft have
ing learning through a practical ported last year. However, various collaborated to transform India
approach to the same. sectors have reported the availa- into a digitally empowered nation
bility of job opportunities but are through NSDC’s eSkill India
The integration of skills in high- met with a lack of industry-rele- portal. The focus is exclusively on
er education under the National vant skills, which also results in a female students, targeting benefi-
Skill Qualification Framework and rising unemployment trend. This ciaries from rural and semi-urban
incorporation of skills and ability can be attributed to a widening parts of India and AISECT has
enhancement courses through skill gap in the Indian industry. implemented the project in seven
Choice Based Credit System for locations — Bemetara, Rajgarh,
sustainable skill development is Impetus to skilling Narayanpur, Bijapur, Durg, Jhansi
also advocated along with the full- and Chitrakoot. The current
time vocational degree / diploma In today’s times when India is project’s target is to develop ICT-
programmes and add on courses leading 4th Industrial Revolution, based skills among girl students
being offered through BVoc the existing ecosystem of skilling, living in the project locations and
higher education and employment generate employment.
We also have the NEP which need a facelift. Public-Private
brings formal education and skill Partnerships (PPP) have a pivot- Blue-collar and grey-collar
development together. It talks al role to play in the placement workers are the backbone of
about skilling from the VIth of talent in the right job. Prime every sector in India. India has a
standard onwards and main- Minister Narendra Modi launched working population of blue-collar
streaming vocational education. Skill India Initiative in 2015 with employees of approximately 300
NEP also focuses on skilling being the ambition to train about 400 million and it is estimated that
an integral part of higher educa- million people. It recently received India Inc will create around 7 mil-
tion and it sets a target of 50 per an approved amount of Rs 12,000 lion blue-collar jobs by this fiscal
cent learners across the higher ed- crore from the Cabinet, indicating year-end. However, the gap lies in
ucation institutions to be exposed the seriousness shown by the Gov- formal training programmes for
towards skill development. Now is ernment to bridge the existing gap blue-collar workers across sectors.
the time to implement this idea of of supply and demand of talent. The rising number of start-ups,
bringing the two streams together. eCommerce enterprises have cre-
And it will be no less than a rev- One such example of recognis- ated a need gap in this segment. A
olution in the skilling and educa- ing and bridging the skill-gap is basic understanding of technology
tion domain of India. the collaboration between The Na- and the use of the internet can
tional Skill Development Corpo- bridge the gap massively leading
As per the Eighth Edition of the to the use of job portals and appli-
cations for skilling and training.
BW EDUCATION OCTOBER 2022 78
In the year 2030, India’s
working population is predicted
to increase from 750 million to
nearly one billion. If plans for
training are not undertaken the
country will be burdened with a
growing class of unemployed indi-
viduals and subsequently negative
economic consequences. India
needs to step forward with the
affirmation that education needs a
new-age outlook to practical train-
ing, content creation and multi-
purpose training. At AISECT we
continue to focus on skill training
for the youth, in about 17 sectors,
including electronics, hardware,
logistics, banking, and finance.

WWW.BWEDUCATION.COM



INSIGHT/ SKILLS LANDSCAPE

Skills Get Long
Overdue Dignity

Vocational and soft skills have entered the mainstream education discourse.
While the Industrial Training Institutes were set up since 1950s, there is a
new thrust and impetus to improve their quality, and open more training
opportunities, thanks to new policy initiatives and willpower

By Meha Mathur

BW EDUCATION OCTOBER 2022 80 WWW.BWEDUCATION.COM

Photograph by BIVASH BANERJEE that today, “many courses related The vision of
to coding, artificial intelligence, National Policy for
About 10 lakh pass- robotics, 3D printing, drone tech- Skill Development
ing out students of nology, tele-medicine etc have been
Industrial Training launched in ITIs”. and
Institutes (ITIs) Entrepreneurship,
received their Calling the skilled youth the 2015, is ‘To create
certificates across “backbone of the industry of India”,
India during the first ever Kaushal the Prime Minister described the an ecosystem of
Deekshant Samaroh (Skill Convo- various measures that the govern- empowerment by
cation Ceremony) on September ment has taken for upgradation skilling on a large
17, celebrated each year in India as of training institutes, including Scale at Speed with
Vishwakarma Jayanti. loan schemes to facilitate self-em- high Standards….’
ployment. Another provision is
The event, addressed by the PM that students joining an ITI after Industry players were invited to
via video conference, was attended passing 10th standard are also get- come forward and manage these
by 40 lakh students of training ting 12th pass certificates through institutes in partnership with the
institutes. Speaking on the occa- National Open School. government. Centres of Excellence
sion, Prime Minister Modi un- and model ITIs were also created
derlined the role ITIs will play in It was a moment that encapsu- within these institutes, closely
India's success in this era of Fourth lates the coming of an age for this allied with specific manufactur-
Industrial Revolution, i.e., ‘Indus- silent segment working behind ing companies’ needs, and from
try 4.0’. In this regard, he described the scenes. The first industrial where manpower would be directly
training institute (ITI) was set up picked up.
BW EDUCATION OCTOBER 2022 81 in the country in 1950, and from
then onwards, a series of ITIs Around this time, industry bod-
were set up across the country in ies like CII and FICCI also started
cities, small towns and rural areas, highlighting skills as a thrust area,
catering initially to industry and inviting stakeholders on common
later also to service sector. Skills platform for their flagship skills
that constitute the foundation of events, bringing out skills reports
industry and society were taught and compendiums providing
here to students joining after class crucial data for further action. In
X and XII: Mechanical and elec- these gatherings, international
trical trades, plumbing, carpentry, frameworks also came to light,
computers, beautician, baking, that helped Indian stakeholders to
jewellery, garments and so on. imbibe several elements.

Despite the infrastructure The Skills Policy of 2009 and the
created in terms of machines and launch of National Skills Develop-
equipment and manpower, there ment Corporation, that aimed to
were several lacunae, especially align skills needs of several sectors
curriculum and equipment not through sector skills councils,
keeping pace with industry needs. creating framework of standards
Equally important, societal norms of training and certification, was a
against blue-collar work did not major milestone. The key concern
let these institutes come into at that juncture was capitalising
limelight. While film stars would on the ‘demographic dividend’ and
descend on hallowed campuses of providing employable skills to the
B-schools to give pep talk to the youth so that the youth is gainfully
PGDM students, students of ITIs, employed, contributes to economy
who could actually do with some
pep talk, prepared themselves for WWW.BWEDUCATION.COM
the journey of long and hard work,
largely unnoticed.

The first dent in this status
quoist framework was created in
the middle of the first decade of
the century, when the then govern-
ment launched the PPP scheme
of aligning 1,227 out of the 1,396
government ITIs with industry.

INSIGHT/ SKILLS LANDSCAPE

Photograph by RAWPIXEL

and doesn’t become a trigger for • A national policy response is, and involvement of stake hold-
social unrest. therefore, needed to guide the ers.
skill development strategies and e)Creating institutional mecha-
The Preamble of the 2009 policy coordinated action by all stake nism for research development
touched upon these issues: holders to avoid a piecemeal quality assurance, examinations
• India has set a target of skilling approach. It is also important & certification, affiliations and
that the policies of skill devel- accreditation.
500 million people by 2022. opment be linked to policies in f )Increasing participation of stake-
• Harnessing the demographic the economic, employment and holders, mobilising adequate
social development arenas. investment for financing skill
dividend through appropriate development, attaining sustain-
skill development efforts would The policy acknowledged the ability by strengthening physical
provide an opportunity to following challenges: and intellectual resources.
achieve inclusion and productiv- a) Increasing capacity & capabil-
ity within the country and also Its vision included, among other
a reduction in the global skill ity of existing system to ensure things:
shortages. Large scale skill de- equitable access to all. • The skill development initiatives
velopment is thus an imminent b)Promoting life-long learning,
imperative. maintaining quality and rele- support the supply of trained
• Major challenge of skill develop- vance, according to changing workers who are adjustable
ment initiatives is also to address requirement particularly of dynamically to the changing
the needs of huge population emerging knowledge economy. demands of employment and
by providing skills in order to c)Creating effective convergence technologies. This policy will
make them employable and help between school education, promote excellence and will
them secure “decent work”. Skill various skill development efforts meet the requirements of knowl-
development for persons work- of government and between edge economy.
ing in the unorganised sector is government and Private Sector • Skill development policy will be
a key strategy in that direction. initiative. an integral part of comprehen-
This will also inculcate dignity of d)Capacity building of institutions sive economic, labour and social
labour and create greater aware- for planning, quality assurance policies and programmes. A
ness towards environmental,
safety and health concerns. WWW.BWEDUCATION.COM

BW EDUCATION OCTOBER 2022 82

framework for better coordina- skilling, like provision of trainers, Clear vision
tion among various Ministries, assessment and quality of training Giving a direction to the skills
States, industry and other stake- centres. movement is the National Policy
holders will be established. for Skill Development and Entre-
One enabling initiative is the preneurship, 2015, which address-
And among its operational strat- Pradhan Mantri Kaushal Vikas es the issues of scale, speed and
egies was creation of National Vo- Yojana, the flagship scheme of standard. Its vision statement is,
cational Qualification Framework, MSDE, being implemented by “To create an ecosystem of empow-
as the need was felt to “move to a NSDC. It enables youth to pursue erment by Skilling on a large Scale
system of equivalence to diplomas job relevant skills. A school drop- at Speed with high Standards and
and degrees”. It said: “(NVQF) will out or unemployed youth could to promote a culture of innovation
be created with an open/flexible join a short-term training which is based entrepreneurship which
system which will permit individ- as per the NSQF. Besides core skill, can generate wealth and employ-
uals to accumulate their knowl- computer and financial literacy ment so as to ensure Sustainable
edge and skills, and convert them and soft skills are also imparted, livelihoods for all citizens in the
through testing and certification as also placement assistance at country.”
into higher diplomas and degrees. the end of the course. Recognition
NVQF will provide quality assured of prior learning is an important While subsuming the policy of
various learning pathways having aspect under the scheme, wherein 2009, there are several points of
standards, comparable with any skills of a person are assessed and continuity, and several new ele-
international qualification frame- certified by sector skills councils or ments. Some issues that the policy
work. NVQF will support lifelong other agencies authorised to do so addresses are:
learning, continuous upgradation by the ministry or NSDC. • With 20 ministries/ departments
of skills and knowledge.”
The creation of National Council running skills programmes, be-
A major step was the creation of Vocational Education and Train- sides several state missions, there
of National Skill Qualification ing (NCVET) in December 2018 as is multiplicity in assessments
Framework (NSQF) in December the main regulator (akin to UGC in and inconsistent outcomes.
2013, which specified the learn- higher education space) provides • There is lack of focus on devel-
ing outcomes that a learner must an overarching regulatory frame- opment of teachers training pro-
possess, irrespective of where they work. This body, subsuming the grammes and career progression
did the training course from (akin responsibilities of National Skills pathways for trainers.
to expecting tables up to 12 from Development Agency and National • There is lack of industry/employ-
a student who has cleared IIIrd Council of Vocational Training, has er linkages.
standard in school, and under- been entrusted with the role of rec-
standing of velocity from a student ognition and regulation of award- A key goal of the policy is to
who has cleared class VIII, and so ing bodies and assessment agencies make skills aspirational. And for
on). The novel feature of NSQF in and approval of qualifications as skills training to be a matter of
Indian setting was that it opened per NSQF, and ensures quality choice, it stipulates “providing ver-
up multiple pathways – vertical assurance in skills development tical growth pathways on the lines
and horizontal – in vocational programmes across the country. of the general education system, so
training and general education
through multiple entries and exits, WWW.BWEDUCATION.COM Photograph by ARTURSZ
and also provided to international
equivalence.

The policy also lay emphasis
on private partnerships, financ-
ing models and modular courses,
among other things.

Further acceleration
The creation in 2014 of the Min-
istry of Skills Development and
Entrepreneurship (MSDE) has
given a further thrust to the skills
agenda. The creation of Skill India
(National Skills Development
Mission of India) under NSDC has
taken skills in India to a whole new
level, looking into every aspect of

BW EDUCATION OCTOBER 2022 83

INSIGHT/ SKILLS LANDSCAPE

Photograph by BIVASH BANERJEEthat skill education and traininga viable career option throughreducing entry and exit barriers
Photograph by ARTURSZis also seen as a valid route to earnadvocacy. • Facilitate access to finance
degrees and diplomas, and conse- • Enhance support for potential
quently to positions of authority entrepreneurs through mentor- through credit and market link-
linked to such qualifications”. It ship and networks. ages
also states that 25 per cent schools • Integrate entrepreneurship ed- The policy stipulates that 3,000
would integrate skilling with ucation in the formal education college-based, one national, 30
formal education from class IX system state and 50 nodal entrepreneurial
onwards, to make it aspirational. • Foster innovation-driven and so- hubs will be set up to deliver sup-
cial entrepreneurship to address port covering the entire nation.
The policy lays emphasis on the needs of the population at 'One Nation One Standard' is the
entrepreneurial culture and to that the bottom of the pyramid. mantra that the policy espouses.
end it envisages the following: • Ensure ease of doing business by This, it says, is important so as to
• Encourage entrepreneurship as “ensure that national standards
and quality for skilling are glob-
BW EDUCATION OCTOBER 2022 84 ally aligned and Indian youth can
aspire to secure local, national and
international job opportunities”. It
specifies the following parameters
for ensuring quality:
▷ Quality assurance framework
embedded in NSQF
▷ Market-relevant training pro-
grammes
▷ Recognition of prior learning
▷ Curriculum alignment
▷ National Certification Frame-
work
▷ Placements

WWW.BWEDUCATION.COM



INSIGHT/ SKILLS LANDSCAPE

The Roadmap
Ahead For Skills

Two reports by FICCI that throw light on the skilling infrastructure

that exists in the country, and the transformation that is needed,

including in mindset

On the occasion of Reimagining
FICCI Skills De- Vocational
velopment Sum- Education in India
mit in September
end, the industry The
body released two
reports, highlighting the skills Missing
landscape, achievements, regula- Piece
tory framework and international
best practices.

The report titled 'Skill India Re-
forms: Study of Regulations, Com-
pliances & the Skilling Ecosystem',
while delving into the importance
of regulations and compliances,
“flags issues and challenges and
brings out action points requiring
attention, including in the opera-
tional areas, which could facilitate
effective skilling”, according to
Veena Swarup, Chairperson of
the Task Force constituted for
the study and Former Direc-
tor-HR, Engineers India Ltd, in
her message.

The report provides a compre-
hensive description of history
of skills initiatives, graphically
depicting the major milestones,
and provides the existing training
infrastructure. This includes:
• 14,722 ITIs as of September

2022
• 500 government polytechnics
• 2,000 private polytechnics
• 574 training partners with 1,019

training centres offering training
on 219 job roles

BW EDUCATION OCTOBER 2022 86 WWW.BWEDUCATION.COM

• 37 sector skills councils Skill India Reforms
• 400+ assessment agencies
• 2502 unique qualifications Study of Regulations,
Compliances & the Skilling Ecosystem
It describes the role of various
key agencies that have been estab- tion to Employment) gap studies and projection of job
lished, including NSDC, NCVET, iv. Skill gap studies be carried out opportunities to make skilling
National Skills Training Institute demand-driven
and sector skills councils, and sev- to have demand-driven skilling. iii. Review of skilling infrastructure
eral schemes, including Pradhan v. A tracking and evaluation to ensure optimal utilisation.
Mantri Kaushal Vikas Yojana Some companies having state-
(PMKVY) and Craftsmen Training mechanism be created to make of-the-art training facilities may
Scheme, initiatives of various min- skilling transparent, and out- consider pooling resources with
istries, and private sector. It also come based smaller companies, especially
provides an overview of the skills vi. Align NSQF curriculum with clusters of MSMEs
development framework in Germa- ITI for acceptance by industry iv. Sector skill councils, as auton-
ny, UK, Australia and Vietnam. while hiring omous industry-led bodies be
responsible for the creation of
The bottlenecks that are slowing For industry, industry bodies and 'qualification packs' to ensure
down employability post-skilling sector skills councils: standardised curriculum to be
have been identified and recom- i. Collaborate with Govt in the approved by NCVET
mendations given.
communication and outreach WWW.BWEDUCATION.COM
Some of the observations are: programmes
• Skilling is not very aspirational ii. Collaborate with Govt in the skill

— acquiring a skill is seen as the
last option
• Training capacity to meet the in-
creasing demand needs augmen-
tation
• Lack of access to skill-based ed-
ucation, and training keeps the
marginalised at the level of
low skills and hence low employ-
ability
• The absence of a single central
nodal agency for formulation
and multiple skilling schemes
from multiple agencies create
overlaps and confusion
• Absence of industry and employ-
ers' buy-in for skilled workers.
Value of skilled workforce needs
recognition
• Skills mismatch was recognised
as a major impediment in the
way of employability
Some of the key recommendations
to key stakeholders are:
For the government:
i. Develop a uniform, standardised
skill development policy and
a central nodal agency for the
formulation and release of skill
development schemes
ii. Compile comprehensive guide-
lines and related rules at a single
platform
iii. Develop a National Integrated
Data System, for E-to-E (Educa-

BW EDUCATION OCTOBER 2022 87

INSIGHT/ SKILLS LANDSCAPE

For industry-academia: ture sovereign education system 2. Reimagining curriculum, pro-
i. Enhancement of industry aca- must, clearly and unambiguously, grammes and outcomes
be a 3-box system yet fungible
demia interface to give impetus enough to demonstrate a seamless i. Provision for 3/6/9/12 month
to blended learning models transition from one box to the certificate programmes to be
ii. Integration of technology with next, in a linear and progressive offered at the polytechnics, vo-
the current system, for creating fashion on the back of accumulat- cational training institutes and
e-curriculums, e-learning tools, ed credits-based progression path- ITIs; the certificates of comple-
platforms for online attendance ways”. The paper draws on Swiss, tion may be awarded by univer-
etc Korean and German models to sities/skill universities
draw home the point.
Reimagining skills ii. Similarly, 1/2/3 year associate
The paper titled 'Reimagining the The report, praising the Nation- diploma, diploma and advanced
Vocational Education in India: al Education Policy of 2020 as diploma programmes which
The Missing Piece' “focuses on pathbreaking and specifying “the mirror formal university degree
the significance of vocational need to ensure that there are no programmes
education in the country to hard separations between voca-
meet the demands of the skilled tional education and academic iii. Link every polytechnic, voca-
workforce required by industry, streams”, suggests “three-pronged tional training institute and ITI
making it necessary to prepare the approach to reconstruct the voca- to an industry partner which
youth with 'New Age Skills'”. tional education landscape”. will support apprenticeships
1. Re-structuring the education as well as industry informed
According to Sanjay curriculum and content. Permit
Shivnani, Co-Chair, FICCI Skill system components: Some of the industry partners to design live-
Development Committee & Head– suggestions are lihood centric curriculum
Technical Education & HTU, i. Rejuvenating the polytechnics,
Hindalco Industries Limited, vocational training institutes, iv. Activities like market scans,
“This paper takes an initial step, and ITIs guest lectures and internships
adding value to the concept ii.Positioning the polytechnics, vo- really help aspirants to assess
of Education 4.0, by calling cational training institutes, and and align to industry expecta-
out the need for transforming ITIs to be the cornerstones of a tions
the current formal two-pillar new education system designed
education system viz K-12 around outcomes & livelihoods 3. Re-inforcements via comple-
and “H.Ed.” into a three-pillar iii. These institutes to be linked to mentary & supplementary
system by recommending the a central university in a compre- actions
institutionalization of a middle hensive manner
pillar; the third pillar…”, the third iv. Provision for an embedded i. Brand building actions for the
pillar being vocational education. vocational cell in all central polytechnics, vocational training
universities institutes, and ITIs
“We strongly believe that a ma-
ii.PPP models for the polytech-
BW EDUCATION OCTOBER 2022 88 nics, vocational training insti-
tutes and ITIs

iii. Accelerating the NSQF as
the official standard for skill-
based education as compared to
knowledge-based education

iv. Hiring of ‘engineers’ from
polytechnics and not from uni-
versities

v. Break the chain of progressing
from high school to university;
among other recommendations

The report also emphasises
extensive digital intervention. It
stresses that perception regarding
vocational education should
change from a standpoint that
it’s meant for ‘those who could
not make it, or perceived as a
hobby. It should be mainstreamed
and “positioned as an academic
pathway”.

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INSIGHT/ SKILLS LANDSCAPE

“Skills Training
Should Be
Economically
Driven”

Arindam Lahiri, CEO, Automotive Skills Development Council on the
changing approach to skilling with the coming up of sector skills councils

By Meha Mathur and Shruti Tripathi

Last decade has seen How has the skill landscape pay commercial fees to pursue a
a number of sector evolved and what are the positive programme. That’s where Pradhan
skills councils come outcomes and lacunae over 10 Mantri Kishore Loan Yojana came
into being. One of years? in, to help students.
these is Automotive
Skills Development I would trace the journey Several other key challenges
Council, accredited under the since the formation of NSDC have been identified down the
National Council for Vocational and subsequently, Skill India. road, especially right counselling
Education and training (NCVET) Initially, the ideas were around of candidates, students who want
and comprising several industry financing models for technical to enrol on one course but get
professionals. Over the years it and vocational education - enrolled in another programme.
has trained lakhs of candidates how to set up training centres They eventually do not convert
in industry-specific skills. In an in either private or public- into economic output, whereas
interview to BW Education, ASDC private partnerships and how skill training in the country should
CEO Arindam Lahiri describes do you operationally fund the be economically driven.
the progress made in skilling, training expenses because a lot
and shortfalls that still remain. of students were left behind Another challenge is the quality
Excerpts: because they could not afford to of trainers when every effort is
about standardising the courses
BW EDUCATION OCTOBER 2022 90 and aligning them to National

WWW.BWEDUCATION.COM

Sector skill
councils were
modelled around
some of the best
practices in

Germany,
Australia, the
UK, etc. Each one
of them has been
able to cover the
journey very

differently

Skills Qualifications Framework Initially, it was largely the ITIs them were aligned with industry.
(NSQF). We often forget that the that provided manpower to the The rest were doing curriculum
programme has to be delivered by industry. What was the problem programmes, etc, which were not
trainers, so the quality of trainers with that system? in sync with what the industry
is essential. needed. And therefore, when the
My industry still hires largely from industry would hire people with
And finally, I think there was no the ITI system. Because in the ITI certificates, they would not
significant involvement of indus- absence of any other skill training give any value to that certificate,
try. When I talk about my indus- system, they feel that the ITI because he had to be trained all
try, where a large segment of the system is still better than nothing. over again.
population is formally employed, And many of them have adopted
the skill training in these training ITIs and put their own manpower, How do the sector-specific coun-
institutions and the skill training providing inputs like training of cils help industry and employ-
in the industry were happening as faculty. ment seekers?
a parallel activities. And the two
were not meeting. The ITI system was very man- Sector skill councils were
ufacturing focused, whereas over modelled around some of the best
Whereas the government always the years, the share of services practices in Germany, Australia,
thought that they were providing in the GDP had increased. So the UK, etc. Most of these were
a lot of support because they've obviously, the ITI system wasn't established between 2011 to 2015.
been putting a lot of money into able to give that kind of an op- Each one of them has been able to
this training system. portunity. And only a handful of
WWW.BWEDUCATION.COM
BW EDUCATION OCTOBER 2022 91

INSIGHT/ SKILLS LANDSCAPE

cover the journey very differently the big players and engage them commercial vehicle driver. We en-
depending on whether you're so that smaller players can benefit sure funding opportunities either
working in an organised sector from the training that is provided from the government or from the
industry or an unorganised sector by the former. industry through CSR that we
industry because, in an organised could use to upskill them or skill
sector industry, you have a lot What have been some of the ma- fresh manpower whom we could
of support from the industry. jor initiatives by your council? then deploy in these kinds of roles.
But when you're talking about a We've done some fairly significant
lot of industries which are very We've been working significantly work, but a lot more work remains
unorganised, then there will be closely with most of the most of to be done.
a huge amount of challenge of the vehicle manufacturers like
engagement with the industry Hero, Toyota and Bajaj. So, what Would you say that the issue of
because the industry also doesn't we do is align their programmes curriculum has been addressed
have that kind of bandwidth to be with the standards that we have now with the changes that have
able to engage with them. created. And we use their facilities come up?
to ensure that they deliver
In the automotive sector, we programmes accordingly. I would say that curriculum
work with pretty much almost all is in an ever-evolving phase
the vehicle manufacturers and We are also utilising some of the as there are rapid disruptions
original equipment manufacturers CSR funds available under skilling are happening, and you have
which are large organisations and initiatives to impact some of those to constantly look at changing.
have dedicated skilled training people who are in the informal But if the question is, are they
divisions. sector. One such component of in- reasonably aligned to the
formal sector are the roadside me- current technologies? Yes, we
But as you move deeper into chanics or the independent garage have designed programmes
the value chain and you go to mechanics, essentially, because for electric vehicles, we have
the smaller organisations, that is they are not attached to any brand upgraded all our programmes
where the need for skilled man- or whatever. The second compo- for industry 4.0 applications in
power is the greatest and they nent is that of drivers – be it cab factories and in dealerships. As
themselves cannot do it. So, we driver or an ambulance driver or
will have to entail the support of

Photograph by SANJAY SAKARIA

BW EDUCATION OCTOBER 2022 92 WWW.BWEDUCATION.COM

Photograph by SANJAY SAKARIA

far as trainers is concerned, we If you look at our manufacturing- approach your institute and how
have made a beginning and done related jobs, we have around does he get the funding for the
some programme in various auto 12 clusters across the country course?
clusters, where we are doing in automotive manufacturing,
very, very design programme so these are the places that are We have a microsite called
in partnership with Germany largely the home of most of our careerguide.asdc.org.in which lists
through GIZ, wherein German training locations. the various career options in the
trainers are also available for automotive industry and what
training. We do have training pro- are the courses available for that
grammes outside of that area too, and we also give them the list of
How many persons have you but that is more in the area of the potential training centre that
trained in the last five years or dealerships and drivers, and now he or she may want to look at a
two years? every state has a training cen- particular state at a particular
tre. The advantage of this is the district level.
During Covid, the number of candidates don't need to migrate
training was significantly low. because they can be formally We also created a pool of
The training centres were actually engaged in the local geography. e-learning modules which is
physically closed. Many of our We recently have tied up with supported by our industry, so
programmes are quite difficult to Toyota to set up about 15 to 20 that the student can make up his
deliver on a digital platform and centres, where they will support mind. So, we have programmes in
you need to do hands-on work. the centre in terms of advanced partnership with Toyota, Eicher
But if I talk about the overall last infrastructure. And the objective etc, which are available free of cost
five years, we would have trained is to meet the requirement of their on our website. And one can just
close approximately 3.5 - 4 lakh in dealerships in the rural markets go through the small modules to
different programmes and in the and have those training centres as get an understanding of the work
last one year, about one lakh. close to those markets as possible. that is done in the industry, the
technology being used and the
Can you describe which states And if a student wants to join learning they need to do which is
have you focused on? your programme, how does he there to aim for a certain kind of a
job in the industry.
BW EDUCATION OCTOBER 2022 93
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INSIGHT/ SKILLS LANDSCAPE

“Trained
Workers Likely
To Get Paid More”

As the skilling sector evolves, BN Sridhar, Regional Director, Skill
Development and Entrepreneurship speaks on what to expect and the need of

the hour in skilling

By Vasudha Mukherjee

BW EDUCATION OCTOBER 2022 94 WWW.BWEDUCATION.COM

National Skill opposed to manufacturing. The after which we mentor and guide
Training Insti- manufacturing sector was hit hard them through the industries.
tute (NSTI), during the Covid-19 pandemic, Our ministry supports these
earlier called but now it is picking up again and programmes. While the starting
Foremen Train- there are a lot of job opportunities salary is not as high or attractive
ing Institute, was there. compared to other sectors, there
setup in 1968 by the Government is much more potential and
of India, Ministry of Labour & While there is a genuine interest opportunity for growth.
Employment, Directorate Gener- in building core technical skills
al of Employment and Training in the manufacturing sector, even Those with proper skills
(DGE&T) to build and upgrade with these technical qualifications, and training are seeing a lot
technical skills. With the wave of most people seek out job oppor- of demand in the industry and
demand for skilled workers and tunities in the IT sector. Hence, employers are even willing to pay
skill-oriented courses, BN Sridhar, despite students enrolling in these high salaries, but not at the entry-
Regional Director of Skill Devel- courses and receiving qualifica- level. That is the main challenge
opment and Entrepreneurship, tions, the manufacturing sector is we are facing right now, especially
Karnataka, based at the NSTI still in need for qualified skilled when it comes to small to medium
speaks about the new develop- workers. scale industries, where the initial
ments and trends in education. salaries are quite low.
Excerpts: How can you reconcile student
What is the need of the hour in aspiration with market demand? From the student's perspec-
the market? tive, attitudes and priorities have
There is an increased demand We are taking many steps to changed over time. Families have
in the IT sector, but we are also create awareness among students more disposable income available,
seeing a big requirement in about the various job and career which means that students do
the manufacturing and service opportunities available to them. not have the same urgency to find
sector. However, nowadays The IT and service sector is a job immediately or build core
people prefer white-collar jobs; really attractive right now among skills. What we are seeing is more
even with lesser salaries they students with the start-up boom and more students opting for
are willing to be employed in and initial salaries being higher higher salary jobs in the private
the service and IT sector, as compared to other sectors. But sector without much long-term
our main focus is on industrial planning as opposed to careful
While there is a training and students in the investment in skilling and person-
genuine interest in Industrial Training Institute al & professional growth.
(ITI), which can be pursued after
building core Class X. Students undergo two Tell us about some of your pro-
technical skills in the years of training, during and grammes. How are they improv-

manufacturing WWW.BWEDUCATION.COM
sector, even with
these technical
qualifications, most
people seek out job
opportunities in the

IT sector

BW EDUCATION OCTOBER 2022 95

INSIGHT/ SKILLS LANDSCAPE

ing the career graph of skilled courses accordingly. Many of these engineering backgrounds.
workers? skilling programmes are already We make sure that the staff
We have our own flagship progra- designed by the Sector Skill Coun- continuously upgrades its know-
mme, the Craftsman Training cils, autonomous industry-led ledge and keeps up with new
Scheme (CTS) which is being bodies that are a part of the Na- technology and innovations in the
conducted in the ITI. These are tional Skill Development Corpora- market. Apart from this, we also
the new-age highly technical tion, and we can pick and choose engage guest faculty and experts
courses in the field of welding, the courses we want to offer as per from the industry to help conduct
machinist, etc. This institute is demand. We also work directly our training programs.
especially for training the people with industries and design courses
who will go on to train others to upskill their employees. How can we encourage people to
in these programmes. We are pursue vocational training?
conducting instructor training For example, we have a Mem- Skilled workers are in high
for ITI. orandum of Understanding with demand right now and it is impor-
the Indian Space Research Organ- tant that skills are imparted at an
Currently, we are focused on isation to upskill 4,000 of their early age. Right now, the trend
designing short-term programmes workers. Similarly, we have con- is to pursue academic courses;
depending on what skills are in ducted tailor-made programmes no one is coming towards skill-
most demand from the industry. for managerial development for building programmes. The
These are like refresher courses Submarine Overseeing Team su- National Education Policy (NEP)
for ITI passouts, so that they build pervisors as well as training pro- also highlights the need for skilling
on their skills and experience and grammes for IBM, among others. at an early stage. Once we begin
pursue higher paid jobs. imparting these skills beginning
Where do you find the faculty to at the school level, students will
At present, our main focus is to conduct these programmes? have the chance to choose skill-
observe the industry, find the ar- All our staff at NSTI comes oriented courses. This will be an
eas where there is a skill demand, from industry experience and
and design and offer short-term WWW.BWEDUCATION.COM

BW EDUCATION OCTOBER 2022 96

advantage for institutes like ours the National Institute of Open What is your personal philoso-
and it will also benefit students. Schooling (NIOS), ITI students phy on education?
Unfortunately, skills do not receive will also receive their Class XII I think the education system is
the respect they deserve but NEP qualification. Students also have evolving now as per the needs of
will hopefully help in changing the option to parallelly pursue the young generation. However,
this mindset while also creating degree courses with the Indira I would like to see more respect
more options for students. Gandhi National Open University. in our society for skills and
This way, skilling and education skilled workers. It should be
How do you balance academic can be simultaneously pursued. given the same importance as
pursuits with skilling? Furthermore, many higher regular academic studies. I think
education institutes are offering once skills are imparted at a
Earlier the career graph use bachelor's degree in vocational school level, there will be better
to move from ITI courses to training. There are a lot of awareness and more people will
diploma programmes with the opportunities to pursue education opt for skill-oriented careers.
potential to pursue an engineering and grow in technical careers.
degree afterwards. Through WWW.BWEDUCATION.COM

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INSIGHT/ SKILLS LANDSCAPE

“Early Skilling Will
Boost Confidence
In Kids”

Sandeep Singh Kaura, Chancellor, Lamrin Tech Skills University,
Punjab, and Adviser to Govt of Punjab (Skill Development & Technical
Education) delineates his university’s initiatives to empower the youth
of the state

By Poonam Singh

BW EDUCATION OCTOBER 2022 98 WWW.BWEDUCATION.COM

he skills offering an employability-driven Skills competition which hap-
movement has curriculum. The motive behind pens once every two years, and
gained prom- this is to provide skill-based we also hold India Skills. How
inence in the education. For instance, LTSU are our participants doing,
country for students of engineering are taught and what benefits do they get out
over a decade. up to 5th semesters basic and of it?
Would you say advanced engineering concepts
that as regards various parame- and the 6th semester is the live Through such programmes, our
ters like infrastructure, availa- laboratories to give them hands students get a chance to showcase
bility of trainers, the relevance on training. In the last two their talent on the international
of courses to the industry needs, semesters i.e. 7th & 8th, students stage. India Skills National
and mapping of needs, we have are sent on the deployment in Competition was held from 6
done well? the industry where they would to 10 January 2022. Students
be working as a trained and from 26 states/union territories
Skill development is very impor- productive resource right from displayed their talent in 54 skills
tant for a sustainable future. It the day one. The credits for these such as beauty therapy, cyber
has become a priority area for last two semesters would be security, floristry, robot system
all educational institutions and shared by the industry to enable integration, cloud computing,
corporates. We have understood the university to provide final water technology, painting and
how we can train our future BE degree. We also prepare our decorating, and health and social
generation. Yes, we are dealing students to be a part of the World care, among others. The best-
with infrastructure and trainers’ Skills Competition. selected talent goes for the World
shortage. However, I am sure Skills competition. To find out
this is not a mammoth task to What support are universities the best talent in Punjab, we had
deal with. To understand the expecting from the government? set up 42 different skill sets in 23
infrastructure and availability Do they get all the require- zones. The finalists appear at the
of trainers - first, we need ments? national level and then the sky has
to understand the National no limit. Six students from Punjab
Education Policy (NEP). Under The government is extending all participated in the previous
new guidelines, University Grant support to the skill universities World Skills competition.
Commission (UGC) approved in India including some policies
direct hiring (20 per cent) from changes. The government has What is the thrust of employ-
the industry to get in-class set up regulatory body known ability at your institute — job
training. In short, our institutions as National Council Vocational seeking or entrepreneurship?
can hire trained faculties from the education & Training (NCVET)
industry to train students. to establish regulations and LTSU, set up in 2021, is first-
standards to ensure quality of-its-kind ‘Industry Incubated’
At LTSU, all degree and diplo- in the Technical, Vocational, Skill University in India by IBM
ma programmes offered are com- Education and Training (TVET). as anchor partner along with
pleted two semesters in advance, The government is also extending three other partners - TATA
without compromising on ‘overall funding to the universities for Technologies, Ansys and RERT.
academic credits’ and learning various industry based vocational But, when it comes to placement
outcomes. In the penultimate programmes. and employability, we have set
semester, students necessarily go up a system to achieve 100 per
through ‘live laboratories’ either Do you think the NEP, with its cent of it. Not even a single
in ‘Finishing School’, ‘School of emphasis on skills at an early student of LTSU will sit idle
Startups’ or ‘Internationalization age, will be a game changer? after their graduation. Some of
School’ before starting their ‘on them will bag decent job offers,
the job deployment’ in the last Yes. The world has changed some will become job creators
year. All students of LTSU are rapidly, so why have we stuck to and some of them will be trained
skilled through Bloom’s Taxonomy a 34-year-old policy? We should to be researchers or crack Civil
using Flipped Classroom. be happy to implement training Service Examinations through
and practical aspects at the school University School of Research and
What would you say about the level. It will boost confidence in University School of Competitive
same in the state of Punjab? our kids. When they join college/ Examinations respectively.
university, they will be well- LTSU also supports students
Punjab’s tech universities are versed with functions of skills and who want to pursue their dream
developing global leaders. training. overseas through the School of
Lamrin Tech Skills University is International Curriculum.
a technical skill-based university, India is also part of the World
aiming to foster the youth by WWW.BWEDUCATION.COM

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INSIGHT/ SKILLS LANDSCAPE

Delhi NCT has How enabling are our education- educational policy, so we used
an office of the al institutions and workplaces as to have Airforce Golden Jubilee
Commissioner for far as Persons with disabilities School, especially for disabled
Persons with Dis- are concerned? students but later on, it was
abilities since Au- learnt that inclusive education
gust, 2009, who The Government of India is the best form for child with
is entrusted with several responsi- and the state governments, special need. As per the United
bilities pertaining to safeguarding especially in Delhi, have taken Nations Mandate it is a norm in
the rights of Persons with Disabil- the path of inclusive education each and every school now that
ities and monitoring schemes that in all educational institutions. they should have a minimum
are meant for their welfare. The Earlier, Persons with Disabilities of two special educators. If any
incumbent State Commissioner (PwDs) used to have a separate child with a special need or with
for Persons with Disabilities, Air disabilities approaches a school,
Commodore Ranjan Mukherjee, the school cannot refuse to admit
has been a commissioned officer of them. I get a lot of cases here
the Indian Air Force and has wide where I intervene and make
experience in civil and defence sure that each and every child
administration. Among other gets admitted to the school they
stints, he was Additional Director desire to join. That's how there
General, Prasar Bharti; Officer on is a transformation concerning
Special Duty to the Lt. Governor, inclusive education for Persons
Delhi; and Advisor-cum-Secretary with disabilities.
to Minister of State, Agriculture
and Farmers Welfare, Government What are the steps taken for the
of India. In an interview to BW skill enhancement of PwDs?
Education, he throws light on a Skill Enhancement is not only the
gamut of issues for Persons with job of the State Commissioner,
Disabilities. Excerpts: but also of the respective

“Learning A Skill
Is Not The End
Of The Road”

Air Commodore Ranjan Mukherjee, Delhi’s Commissioner for Persons with
Disabilities talks about the skill enhancement, employment opportunities,

infrastructure and rights of the Persons with Disabilities

By Himanshu Ojha

BW EDUCATION OCTOBER 2022 100 WWW.BWEDUCATION.COM