HYDERABAD: Afew years ago I remember reading an article on Anand Kumar, a teacher who imparts IIT coaching for underprivileged kids for free and how he was uploading his tutoring videos for one rupee each. That was when I felt that it would be great if someonecould teach even without charging that one rupee. I decided I would be that someone and would do it for free,” reminisces R.L.N Murthy, a government school teacher who devotes his spare time to making tutoring videos on mathematics for students.
Maths Murthy as he is popularly known, started the website Sakala Vidya in 2016 and within these two years he has to his credit over 625 tutoring videos on mathematics. These videos are also available on YouTube and cover topics from the intermediate level, to some part of EAMCET and IIT-JEE Mains, among others. Hyderabad-based Murthy aims to cover all the concepts in the given syllabus for the classes he takes. “My videos are freely accessible and anyone can download them and make use of them the way they want to.”
And so far, over hundreds ofstudents have benefitted from these tutoring videos,” he says.
Murthy has been teaching mathematics for around 28 years and has worked in different schools in remote places in Telangana. He currently teaches mathematics ZPHS (Zilla Parishad High School) in Thukranpet village, Yadadri District. “Some children find Maths difficult and that is because they do not have the basic fundamental operations like addition, subtraction, multiplication and division right. And they generally lag behind in thinking of problem solving strategies.
Not being able to comprehend the questions is also another issue. If they understand the questions then, they can easily solve it.” Most of the times classes in rural areas are overcrowded, the student-teacher ratio may be far from ideal and most students are reluctant to ask doubts in such class so the next option is to move to an online interface. Murthy produces his videos with the help of his family, especially his brother Ramakrishna Ramadugu who handles the operation of the Sakala Vidya site. They spend whatever holiday time they get on making these videos. His brother maintains that they never imagined they would get such a good response. “Just two months after we started uploading the videos, we started receiving appreciation from the students. Even today we get around 10 calls from them. Sometimes even other lecturers call for suggestions.”
The videos have so far received feedback from viewers from Andhra, Karnataka, Tamil Nadu, and even West Bengal. “Once, a student came all the way from Rajahmundry in East Godavari district to my house to clear his doubts after watching my videos,” he recounts. “The viewer’s leave comments and suggestions on the videos and I make sure that to consider them while making the next set of videos.” Murthy hopes that his videos are accessible to every student in the country, and possibly abroad.
As of now, almost twenty nine thousand people subscribe to the Sakala Vidya YouTube channel. One popular video on shortcuts to math problems has around 2,60,000 views. Maths Murthy certainly has no plans to stop anytime soon and will continue to make his videos and inspire students across the country to tackle mathematics.