Education – MediaCatalyst

23Mar

By MediaCatalystNo Comments

Column, Education

Reviving Education in India

Thomas Edison’s quip that, ‘A vision without execution is just hallucination’ resonates with India’s wish of getting to the 50% GER by 2030 from the current 26.3% in 2019 without a proper strategy and an execution plan. The rapid expansion of India’s higher education since 2001 resulted in a dramatic rise in the number of HEIs and a corresponding increase in the enrolments – at 51649 institutions and 37.6 Mn students, it is one of the largest higher education systems of the world. While the country is focused on massification of higher education, without finding creative solutions to a few important vectors – the quality of our institutions, employability of the graduates, and financing of higher education, achieving the GER targets of 50% by 2030 seems to be a distant dream. Cha...

IIT Madras and Online Coding Platform Codingal Collaborate to Improve Computer Science Education in Schools

17Mar

By MediaCatalystNo Comments

Education, News

IIT Madras and Online Coding Platform Codingal Collaborate to Improve Computer Science Education in Schools

Online coding platform Codingal today announced that it has collaborated with IIT Madras (IIT-M) to improve the quality of Computer Science education at school level. As part of IIT-M’s ‘Upskill’ program under its annual technical festival, Shaastra 2021, Codingal trained school teachers in Scratch Programing Language. The Codingal-IIT Madras collaboration aims to equip schoolteachers with new teaching methodologies and tools that can be used in the classroom to enhance their students’ Computer Science learning. Codingal conducted a six-session course in Scratch Programming Language to train 100+ teachers from 78 schools. Once trained, these teachers will in turn be able to teach Scratch Programing to their students as part of their computer science education. Scratch language ...

Sachin Tendulkar Enters Into A Strategic Investment With Unacademy

23Feb

By MediaCatalystNo Comments

Education, News

Sachin Tendulkar Enters Into A Strategic Investment With Unacademy

Unacademy, the leading learning platform, today announced that it has signed a strategic partnership with cricket legend Sachin Tendulkar. The vision of this partnership is to provide holistic learning for Unacademy Learners. As part of the deal, Unacademy Learners will be coached and mentored by the legend through a series of live interactive classes, which everyone can access free of cost on the Unacademy platform. The iconic cricketer has been roped in to serve as a brand ambassador for Unacademy. “Our focus at Unacademy has always been to democratize education and create holistic learning solutions that go beyond traditional forms of education. Sachin’s life and journey are a beacon to the values of resilience and determination in the face of insurmountable odds. With this...

11Feb

By MediaCatalystNo Comments

Education, Investment, Startup

Instant Tutor App Filo Raises $260K Pre-seed Round

Instant tutor app Filo has raised $260K as part of its pre-seed investment round from Better Capital based on organic adoption by students purely driven by word of mouth. With the mission to democratize access to the best teachers, Filo was founded by school friends Imbesat Ahmad and Shadman Anwer in Oct 2020. At any time more than 10 million students study for school exams, college entrance or government job exams but at least half of them lose motivation due to lack of timely & reliable support for their queries. On Filo, they can access a tutor on demand within just 60 seconds for a one- to- one video call. In a short period of time, 35,000+ students have completed 1.5 million minutes of sessions on Filo - getting help for critical questions from high quality tutors wit...

Online Learning and e-Assessment: The Only Way to Ensure Continuity in Learning

15Jan

By MediaCatalystNo Comments

Education, Interviews

Online Learning and e-Assessment: The Only Way to Ensure Continuity in Learning

Over the last few months, as the COVID 19 pandemic took the world hostage, it brought almost everything to a grinding halt. This impacted businesses in almost all sectors negatively worldwide, but it has also given a push to EdTech companies simultaneously, due to the school and university closures. Imparting education digitally must also be facilitated with robust e-assessment or digital assessment solutions. Mr. Karan Gupta, Co-founder at AssessPrep shares his insight on e-assessment and how AssessPrep is changing the e-assessment landscape through its assessment platforms. Read is what he has to say. Tell us about AssessPrep and how it is transforming the examination processes through its e-assessment platforms. AssessPrep is an advanced, end to end e-assessment platfor...

Great Lakes Institute of Management Hosts 2020 Nobel Laureate Robert Wilson at the Annual Finance Conference

18Dec

By MediaCatalystNo Comments

Education

Great Lakes Institute of Management Hosts 2020 Nobel Laureate Robert Wilson at the Annual Finance Conference

Mumbai, Dec. 17, 2020: Great Lakes Institute of Management hosted its 11th Annual Finance Conference virtually on 17th December 2020 with Economics Nobel Laureate Prof. Robert Wilson as Chief Guest and Dr Rajat Kathuria as Keynote Speaker. The conference began with an address from the chief guest, the 2020 Nobel Laureate in Economic Sciences, Prof. Robert Wilson, who is also the Adams Distinguished Professor of Management, Emeritus, Graduate School of Business, Stanford University followed by the address of the keynote speaker Dr Rajat Kathuria, Director and Chief Executive, Indian Council for Research on International Economic Relations, New Delhi. The theme of the conference was ‘Strategy of Auctions and the way forward for India’. ...

With COVID-19 Cases Still Rising, Should Schools Re-open?

18Nov

By MediaCatalystNo Comments

Column, Education

With COVID-19 Cases Still Rising, Should Schools Re-open?

More than half of the academic year has gone, the trade-off between access to education and safety during a pandemic is not an easy decision to make. With an increase and spike in cases in most parts of India, parents are worried about sending their children to school and this is very much evident by surveys conducted in multiple cities. The safety of our loved ones is paramount! Most parents believe that the winter smog would only make the current situation worse. According to a local survey conducted last month, more than 60% of parents were against sending their kids to school due to the current situation. Even though research has shown that children are not likely to spread the virus, many experts say that schools cannot safely reopen while community transmission is out of cont...

Time to Reimagine The Purpose of Education

11Nov

By MediaCatalystNo Comments

Column, Education

Time to Reimagine The Purpose of Education

This is a universal crisis and, for some children, the impact will be lifelong.-UNICEF With the COVID-19 pandemic onslaught across the globe, the closure of schools continues to ensure tremendous learning loss across the world. The UNESCO states that the education of nearly 1.6 billion pupils in 190 countries has so far been affected – which means roughly around 90% of the world’s school-age children! A recent World Bank report estimates that sans any drastic remedial action, there could be losses of $10 trillion in earnings overtime for this present generation of students. The report also stated that the impact of the pandemic could lead to countries being driven away from achieving their learning poverty goals. Closer home, the report states that South Asia alone could have close to ...

Growing Significance of Blended Learning and Teaching in the Post Covid-19 World

9Nov

By MediaCatalystNo Comments

Column, Education

Growing Significance of Blended Learning and Teaching in the Post Covid-19 World

Covid-19 has had a major impact on nearly all spheres of human life, and education too has witnessed a significant disruption. As per statistics put out by UNESCO on its website, over 190 countries faced disruption in formal learning and teaching impacting nearly 1.5 billion learners at one point. As per the same report about 320 million learners have been impacted in India alone. (*Source: https://en.unesco.org/covid19/educationresponse) However, quite commendably, despite the scale and impact of this pandemic, private education enterprises, as also Governments across the globe, were swift in putting out resources for the benefit of learners. In India, in addition to the efforts of all major education content and service providers, various Government initiatives such as ...

Digital Education has Paved its Way into Education System of India: Akhand Swaroop

21Oct

By MediaCatalystNo Comments

Education, Interviews

Digital Education has Paved its Way into Education System of India: Akhand Swaroop

The recent Coronavirus pandemic has impacted educational systems across globe. Attending classes have been difficult for students and competitive examination aspirants. This has forced educational institution, and training and development industry to incorporate technology in the educational system, and the students and exam-aspirants to be comfortable with online classes. The biggest winner in the current situation has been the edtech companies that have seen unprecedented growth during this period. The Catalyst Group is one such organization that has witnessed an almost 200% increase in admissions for online courses. In an exclusive interview with MediaCatalyst, Mr. Akhand Swaroop Pandit, Founder, and CEO, The Catalyst Group shares the journey of the group and the industry trends...