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Milind Shahane, CEO, Tata ClassEdge talks about the emerging prospects of EduTech in India and his platform’s relevance for the schools.
Tell us a little about your EduTech business and platform
Tata ClassEdge is a 10 years old Tata organisation. Our parent company is Tata Industries and we are a part of Tata Sons. It started as the digital platform for providing teaching in schools. We have developed the curriculum for all kinds of schools and our platform is being used in 30,000 schools. During COVID our work was affected because the schools were not working in the full-fledged manner. Because of this it has reduced to some extent. But the customers are still with us. We provide the full range of EduTech related products for schools, right from hardware, the installation of the hardware, the networking of the schools, the teaching classes software etc. in the last few years we have added extra-curricular subjects such as thinking about values. We have added EarlyEdge for the kindergarten children and during lockdown we have added mobile linked hardware. These include laptops, cameras and earphones, which are used in hybrid teaching and learning. It could be in the classroom or broadcasting the lecture online. We have provided the facility to the teacher to deliver the lecture in the school and also simultaneously broadcast it online to the students at home. We provide mobile hardware and also the software about how to improve their pedagogy. We also provide the technical support for the hardware under the name of TechEdge. We have a wide range of products and services for the digital education of school in India.
We cover all the major boards in India. CBSE is the largest board. We also have the products and material related to ICSE and for the major state boards such as Maharashtra, Tamil Nadu, Karnataka, Andhra Pradesh, Madhya Pradesh, Uttar Pradesh etc. A few months ago we have also launched Hindi medium classes. We are also going to bring out products in Tamil, Marathi and other major languages in India. So we are addressing the larger school market than just English medium schools. The government has a large plan to digitise the schools. So we have now started working with the government schools as well. We also developed an assessment platform called Tata TestEdge., which is being used for conducting exams and assessments. We have a full-fledged design and development team which comprises of 200 people. This team develops not only the teaching material for the schools, but also the software and the platform. Now we have come up with a learning platform for the parents and the students which is called TataStudi. It was launched in March this year. We already have more than 2000 paid subscribers and more than 50,000 registrations and we have crossed more than 250,000 downloads.
Do you also have programmes for teachers?
Yes, we are also helping teachers to come on the platform to get teachers’ training and certification. They can come on Tata ClassEdge and get trained in teaching methodology. We have various programmes for them. A popular programme is Virtual Teaching Mastery. Individual teachers come onboard and get trained in digital teaching and get certified.
Do you think partners can make a contribution in the EduTech sector?
Yes, we develop the platforms on our own. But for other products we collaborate with partners. For hardware we are working with all the major companies related to computers, servers, projectors and now increasingly what are called as IFPs i.e, the flat panel TVs. We have partnered with Acer, HP, Dell, BenQ, Epson etc. for software we have partnered with Microsoft. We have sold 100,000 PCs in 2000 schools in the last 10 years.
Do you work with resellers and do you think they can contribute to the growth of EduTech in India?
Yes we also work with distributors and other reseller partners. They are in our distribution network. They are our partners to bring in customer leads and orders. Now we are using them as our affiliate partners to sell TataStudi directly to the parents and students. We also sell digital E books which our distributors sell. We also work with OEMs so that we can get the products from them.