KOZHIKODE: It has been nearly a year since Harikrishnan I S, a Class IX student from Thiruvananthapuram, started using an education mobile application that can assist him in his studies. Over the course of time, Harikrishnan has found the learning app, which explains an array of difficult concepts both in detail and in capsule form, has been an extremely beneficial tool.
“I’m now able to comprehend difficult topics in subjects such as Maths quite easily. The visual elements and videos coupled with animation makes the learning experience a funny and interesting one,” he says.
While students in Kerala are already accustomed to additional tuition and coaching classes post and prior to their school hours, the trend of using learning applications as an instrument for extra tuition is slowly spreading among school students, especially those in high school classes.
Education apps such as Meritnation, myCBSEguide or My Study Park that caters to CBSE, ICSE and state school students have turned into familiar household terms.
A section of these learning applications provide detailed lessons of subjects from classes IV to XII while certain apps help you prepare for competitive examinations such as CAT, GMAT, JEE and NEET.
Common features found in these education apps include short videos for explaining topics, sample questions and solved papers, guides and personal mentors to evaluate the performance of students. The use of these learning apps have undoubtedly witnessed a rise in the recent times.
“We started off nearly six months ago with a handful of users. Over the period, we have had over 20,000 registrants across the state,” said founder of Kerala-based app Tuition Mash, Suhair Mahamood. Likewise, the recently launched My Tuition App has crossed 5,000 registrants in the past two to three months.
“Initially we had around 1,000 users, but the number of students using the application has increased five times in the last couple of months,” said an officer working with My Tuition App.
Meanwhile, the popular learning application Byju’s that has users across the globe, has over 3,000 registrants in each of the Malabar districts while in cities such as Kochi and Thiruvananthapuram, it has over 6,000 student users each. These education mobile apps offer range of price packages for students, varying from `1,000 to `18,000 annually.
According to education consultants, more students have started opting for education apps, as it reduces the hectic schedule of having to switch between school and traditional tuition centres. “It helps them connect with experts across the globe. However, parents and students must ensure the technology does not become a substitute for the real-time lessons taught in schools,” said Kozhikode-based education consultant Sandhya Varma.
Meanwhile, traditional tuition centres functioning in the state maintained though the emergence of learning apps has not affected the centres in rural areas, the ones operating in urban areas are witnessing a drop in number of students.
“In rural regions, students still continue to study under a tuition teacher or attend tuition centres. However, in cities and towns, students have started opting for learning apps over coaching centres,” said an official working with a private tuition centre in Malappuram.