How Tata ClassEdge is Fostering Innovation in Education Nirav Khambhati, Chief Executive Officer, Tata ClassEdge speaks about how they are transforming the teaching methodology

Quality Education is the Priority

One of the major challenges of the education sector is ensuring quality education for all. Khambhati believes that meeting quality standards is an issue in any field that requires a large number of qualified skilled professionals, and teaching is no exception. Adding to the challenges, he mentioned that scale is another one. However, technology can take an idea anywhere, with the potential to address the challenges of quality at scale. "The challenge is in matching the sheer scale and need of a country like India," he said. It's also important to improve the teaching-learning experience in the classroom.

"Tata ClassEdge was designed by experienced educational practitioners with inputs from educational research. We don't look at educational technology as a set of disparate digital resources that teachers could use in a classroom but as a collection of experiences bound together by a strong pedagogical design," said Khambhati. More than 100,000 teachers across almost all the states have already transformed their teaching methodology through Tata ClassEdge. They are currently present in more than 20,000 classrooms in private schools and in more than 300 classrooms in government and low-income schools

Teachers Shouldn't be Intimidated by Innovation

Innovation is what drives change and progress in any field. However, any innovation in education must be cognizant of its consequences for teachers and learners. Regardless of how innovative a technology may seem, if it does not improve learning experiences and educational outcomes, it has not much meaning in a school. "We have designed a platform to study the usage patterns of teachers which enables us to make the right interventions to improve usage in schools," he said.

Their core product, ClassEdge Lx, is based on their own proprietary instructional framework called Multiple Learning Experiences (MLEx), which recommends a variety of activities, both digital and offline, to cement understanding as well as to improve creative and critical thinking. "In order to make this solution user-friendly for teachers, we map our digital assets to the textbooks followed in each school to facilitate seamless teachinglearning in classrooms. Today we have mapped our content to over 500 publishers and 7,000 textbooks," he said. According to a report on school leadership by McKinsey and Co., nearly 25 per cent of a school's impact on student achievement is attributable to one individual – the principal. "We have therefore designed a oneday course for principals, named Conclave, giving them personalized feedback on how they can enhance their leadership effectiveness," added Khambhati.

Partnerships for Growth

For the first time in India, as a collaborative partnership between Tata ClassEdge and City Montessori School (CMS), Lucknow, one of the largest schools in the world, they have introduced MATE, which is an end-to-end measurement driven model, where Tata ClassEdge takes complete responsibility for teacher training, acceptance, adoption and effective usage of technology by teachers in the classrooms. They have also partnered with Knewton, one of the world's finest adaptive learning platforms, to personalize learning experiences for each student.

(This article was first published in the March issue of Entrepreneur Magazine. To subscribe, click here)