Getting Smart

Government schools in Maharashtra see improvement in learning environments and

academic performance as tailor-made technologies enable corporate foundations to execute
large-scale digitization programs… But it hasn’t always been this easy!

By Lehar Tawde, ConnectEd Technologies | 25th November 2019, Mumbai

You wouldn’t be wrong if you looked into a classroom of Sangharsh Nagar Municipal School
and thought it belonged to a private school. Afterall, this institution – located in Mumbai’s
Powai area – is one amongst 100 government schools, across Mumbai, Panvel and Raigad,
which were converted into ‘Smart Schools’ by my edtech social enterprise, ConnectEd
Technologies, with support from Sony Pictures Networks India and the State Government of
Maharashtra. As a result of this association, teachers in these schools conduct their daily
lectures using one of the 500+ tailor-made ‘Smart Classroom Systems’ that have been
deployed to improve learning environments and academic outcomes in 50,000+
government school students. 
 
What technology is achieving in government schools today – such as the one in Sangharsh
Nagar – is a huge leap from where things were until a few years ago. Back in the day, when
e-learning systems made their entry in India’s schools, they first found audience amongst
the affluent private schools in metro cities. Gradually, the philanthropy of various socially-
responsible organizations led to the percolation of such infrastructure into government
schools. Naturally, the administration took note and started its own efforts at ‘digitizing’
government schools, with the hope of attracting children to government schools, reducing
drop-outs, improving learning environments and boosting academic performance in a
scalable manner. While their intentions were noble, conventional e-learning infrastructure
was never designed for the dust, damage and power outage prone environments of
government schools, or for use by teachers with very limited understanding and inclination
towards the use of technology in daily teaching. To make matters worse, none of the edtech
‘pioneers’ was keen on creating educational content that was tailored to the understanding
levels of children in government schools and in-sync with the ever-changing, vernacular-
language state board curriculums followed by government schools. Extending after-sales
services to the last mile – which is imperative for the success of such efforts – was out of
question, when there was booming demand, easy conversions and better return on
investment waiting in India’s metro and tier-II cities. As a result, state-of-the-art
infrastructure worth crores of rupees was seldom used by a handful of self-driven teachers
to sporadically expose students to tech-enabled learning; producing no tangible impact on
overall learning environment or academic performance. This experience tremendously
scarred socially-responsible organizations and governments alike; an unsavory experience
that is recollected to this day, by those who got their hands burnt.
 
I think the turning point for edtech in India’s government schools came on 1 st April 2014,
when the government made an amendment to the Companies Act 2013 to make India’s the
world’s first country to mandate Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) spending on its most
profitable companies. Given that India was already thriving with technology platforms,
products and talent, individuals like my partner, Lavin Mirchandani, and I – who dreamt to
change the system with technology – suddenly saw an opportunity to create organizations,
products and solutions that could be scaled aggressively, like conventional technology
products, with support from philanthropic arms of large organizations, since the schools or
audiences therein couldn’t afford the upfront costs themselves.
 
To design a technology product for any audience, it is imperative for the creator to know the
audience. At the outset, Lavin and I knew little about the India’s public schooling system. As
a result, when we decided to quit our jobs after months of secondary research on this
system and how technology is making a difference to it, our first decision was to conduct
primary research that would bring us face-to-face with quantitative and qualitative realities
of what is happening at the grass-root level. Our journey into this space started in Palghar,
Maharashtra, which was a newly formed district at that point. We began by interacting with
the District Collector and Education Officers, who were kind enough to share a plethora of
information with us, besides permitting us to visit government schools to capture data
directly from key stakeholders. After three months of staying in Palghar, Lavin and I had
managed to analyze quantitative and qualitative data across 570 schools in the Palghar
block of the district. This extensive research laid the foundation of ConnectEd Technologies
– an edtech social enterprise that aimed to bring together governments, corporates, NGOs
and grass-root level educators towards the large-scale digitization of government schools,
with a tailor-made solution that was best suited to meet the requirements of these
stakeholders. Recognizing the problem identified by us, State Government of Maharashtra
and Dewan Housing Finance Ltd. (DHFL) decided to support our pilot project in Palghar,
Maharashtra, covering 11 high-density schools that catered to around 14,000 school
students. These schools were the first to receive our dust-and-damage resistant ‘Smart
Classroom Systems’, which is modular and user-friendly to point where even teachers who
aren’t tech-savvy are easily able to integrate it into their daily lectures. Furthermore, the
device is bundled with curriculum-linked educational content in vernacular languages, that
is tailored to the understanding and exposure levels of students in government schools, and
all-integrated services shouldering all project-related responsibilities for its entire duration. 
 
Designing a solution after undertaking such an extensive research yielded our work
tremendous positive feedback - quantitatively as well as qualitatively - in various tests and
surveys conducted by third party organisations and the government too. Our success is
Palghar prompted DHFL to further its association with us in the region, with the State
Government of Maharashtra now permitting us to scale the project across the state. The
resultant media attention encouraged companies such as Reliance Industries, Sony Pictures
Networks India, Hindustan Unilever and Avanse Finance Services to support our efforts to a
point where, today, our ‘Smart Classroom System’ is used by teachers to teach over 100,000
students in Western Maharashtra. 

Most recently, our analysis of mid-term examination results across Mumbai-based

government schools that were fitted with our ‘Smart Classroom Systems’, with CSR funding
from Sony Pictures Networks India, led us to understand that, on an average, there was a
70.7% increase in the number of children getting grade ‘A’ or ‘B’ across 5th to 10th
standard, and a reduction of 52.2% in the number of children getting grade ‘C’ or lower. This
indicates how tailor-made edtech solutions have the potential to enable teachers to benefit
academically well-performing children, as well as students who have been marred by low
grades until now. By observing impact to this extent within a span of one year, it is safe to
say that edtech in government schools is here to stay, however, what remains to be seen is
how many companies deploy resources to create solutions tailor-made for these audiences
and their requirements. Afterall, a tech-driven overhaul of India’s public schooling system
will require efforts from across the sector, given the size and complexity of the system itself.
Also, it will be interesting to see whether and how governments and administrations
leverage insights and experiences of organisations such as ours while formulating their own
digitisation policies. Eventually, the ultimate resources and responsibility to scale solutions
and programs to benefit each student in every government school lie with the
administration. Until then, we at ConnectEd Technologies shall continue scaling our efforts
across Maharashtra with great vigour, whilst exploring possible partnerships to setup
projects in other states as well. Afterall, in today’s day and age when technology is making
information so accessible, isn’t it plain unfair that something as vital as quality education is
still restricted to a privileged few?