What began as a YouTube channel to impart math is a family title on the planet of EdTech. Khan Academy, began by Sal Khan, is on a mission to supply free training all over the world.
Khan Academy India (KAI) is an Indian non-profit organisation with the target of providing free world-class training to thousands and thousands of Indian college students. Khan Academy and Tata Trusts shaped KAI. They have quizzes, questions, movies, and articles about arithmetic, biology, chemistry, physics, historical past, economics, finance, grammar, and extra.
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Students can study at their very own pace with practise workouts, educational movies, and personalised studying dashboard. They emphasise talent mastery to assist college students construct strong foundations for future studying.
Anyone with a low-cost smartphone from any location can entry the identical Khan Academy classes as college students on the planet’s best colleges. They additionally present academics with free, sturdy instruments and classes that assist all kids succeed.
The Tech Panda spoke to Sandeep Bapna, MD of Khan Academy India in regards to the platform’s efforts to achieve extra folks in India.
Sandeep Bapna
We are continually working to lift consciousness and accessibility of our platform in order that extra college students can profit from our studying content material
“We are constantly working to raise awareness and accessibility of our platform so that more students can benefit from our learning content,” he says.
Customising Content to Vernacular Needs
Khan Academy’s classes are available English, Hindi (Hinglish), Gujarati, and Kannada, and extra, because the platform tries to achieve as many college students as they will. In India, the platform has over two million learners and 100,000 academics utilizing the platform each month to entry content material in languages resembling Hindi, Hinglish, Gujarati, Kannada, and Punjabi.
“Most developed countries have a handful of major spoken languages. However, countries like India have multiple regional languages and vernaculars are the main medium for learning in rural and non metro cities,” says Bapna.
Since many of the high-quality academic content material obtainable on-line is in English, we recognized this as a serious barrier to studying efficacy
“More importantly, a vast majority of the people in these geographies are not comfortable speaking or understanding English. Since most of the high-quality educational content available online is in English, we identified this as a major barrier to learning efficacy,” he provides.
To deal with this problem, the platform has prioritised the localisation and alignment of its content material to vernacular wants.
“This is achieved through associations with local subject matter experts, governments, and public/private schools, which enable us to deliver learning content in regional languages without compromising its efficacy, integrity, or quality,” he explains.
The Non-profit Business Model
The platform’s enterprise mannequin has all the time been non-profit. It counts a number of main international philanthropists and companies amongst its trustees and sponsors, together with Bill Gates, John and Ann Doerr, Google, and Ratan Tata.
Khan Academy was established and continues to function as a non-profit group, as it’s the solely enterprise mannequin appropriate for fulfilling our long-term aim of offering world-class, free, and accessible training to each learner
“Their support and guidance have been invaluable to making high-quality learning content and solutions available to everyone, regardless of their geographical location or socioeconomic background,” says Bapna.
“Khan Academy was established and continues to operate as a non-profit organization, as it is the only business model suitable for fulfilling our long-term goal of providing world-class, free, and accessible education to every learner,” he provides.
Tech All the Way
Khan Academy began with know-how, and it nonetheless makes use of know-how to fulfill its targets. The platform makes use of a front-end ‘technology’ that’s extra open-source. Its movies are hosted on YouTube for ease of use and ubiquity. It additionally has a powerful tech framework to handle points with latency and bandwidth that ceaselessly crop up in distant areas with poor connectivity.
“This allows our recorded videos to stream without issues, at a bandwidth of around 1.5 Mbps/user on devices that can stream SD videos. While the live-action content requires slightly higher bandwidth, any learning exercises on Khan Academy can be accessed on a bandwidth of around 150 kbps per user,” Bapna explains.
The platform is designed in a approach in order that college students can monitor their progress and oldsters and academics can assess the place their children/college students want extra assist and make higher selections
All the video content material is made on comparatively reasonably priced software program resembling Camtasia Recorder/Studio and ScreenVideoRecorder, whereas graphics are launched with free software program resembling SmoothDraw and Microsoft Paint.
“Overall, the role of technology at Khan Academy is to enable access to high quality educational content to everyone. The platform is designed in a way so that students can track their progress and parents and teachers can assess where their kids/students need more support and make better decisions,” he provides.
Growth Story
Currently, college students and academics from over 160 international locations study on the platform. Bapna explains that that is potential due to the assist of their funders, which incorporates Tata Trusts, SBI Foundation, and CSF in India.
“They enable us to create world class learning content that is available for free to every learner,” he says.
We need to be the de-facto companion of selection for all learners in India to complement their studying, at any time, in anyplace, on any system
Additionally, the platform works with a number of authorities companions and personal organisations (Zomato, Snapdeal, Unilever amongst others) who assist take the content material to extra learners, particularly from rural India.
Future Plans
With a aim of constructing Khan Academy’s studying content material and answer obtainable and accessible to each pupil throughout the nation, Bapna reveals their future plans.
“We want to be the de-facto companion of choice for all learners in India to supplement their learning, at any time, in any place, on any device,” he says.
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“We also wish to establish ourselves as the preferred tool that educators across the country use to transform their classrooms into places of learning and growth,” he provides.
To this finish, the platform is localizing and adapting its present content material for main Indian languages. You can count on extra such localizations in a broader vary of vernaculars over the following few years. Khan Academy India has additionally aligned its total middle- and high-school math catalogue to the curricula adopted within the national- and state-level faculty boards, with topics resembling science quickly to comply with.
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