Spare time for better lessons in govt schools

Khan Academy and Department of Primary and Secondary Education want accessible, understandable e-content to reach govt schools

BENGALURU: The Department of Primary and Secondary Education is partnering with US-based online learning platform, Khan Academy, to provide easily understandable and interesting e-content for government schools, and now the public can also participate in this initiative.  

An official communique released by the department a few days back states, “The Education Department is working with Khan Academy in localising e-content, and is in the process of identifying talents. Khan Academy is conducting a talent search exam, and therefore, we need more participation in this process.”
Vipul Redey, head of School Enablement at Khan Academy, tells City Express that they need people who are visual, innovative and articulate.

“In many ways, Salman Khan (founder of Khan Academy) has a particular way of teaching, where he builds a concept in baby steps and is incredibly articulate. His way of teaching is visual, as he uses diagrams, pictures and chalkboards to explain things. Someone who is able to meet the same requirements is who we are looking for.” He spoke to CE on the sidelines of the Mentor’s Conclave, an education meet on Friday that saw specialists from various fields — media, law, etc — and a number of educators come together.

According to state data, there are around a lakh government schools from elementary to high school-levels, and a few thousand schools that are government-aided or under other state departments. When asked the number of people required for the job, Vipul says, “We are flexible with the numbers if we get the right kind of talent. The amount of content needed is humongous. I do not think that this or the next five talent searches are going to bring enough people to fulfill our mission.” Localising content for science and math is what the initiative will be concentrating on for now.

He also adds that Khan Academy “would love for government schools in Karnataka to be well represented in terms of having all needs met in content, videos and exercises.” Vipul mentions that a number of school boards from other states have also got in touch with Khan Academy to also localize content. There are “plans to have a content tag to state boards as well as schools from CBSE and ICSE for a wider reach of content.”

New ‘Hinglish’ channel

Khan Academy is going to start a channel in ‘Hinglish’ to address the needs of private schools that may be English medium, but are not very comfortable in the language. “The narration will be in Hindi, but technical terms will be in English. We want to cater to the needs of all schools.”

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The New Indian Express
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