Education Pradipta Banerjee XLRI

8/14/2019 Education Pradipta Banerjee XLRI

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IGNITE

Pradipta Banerjee XLRI, Jamshedpur


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Reasons for Not going to School and High Dropout

Child has to look after younger siblings

Has to work for wages/attend other domestic activities

Financial constraints

School not located conveniently

Inability to cope with failure in studies

No one in the family has ever been to school

Lack of funds and poor infrastructure in rural schools

Parent/Child not interested in studies

Unfriendly atmosphere at school Language problems

Uninterested teachers and government apathy

Fear of corporal punishment

Education not considered useful

Poor quality of educational contentCanbe

Addressed

by

the

Plan


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The Business Model

Interesting and relevant digital content for primary education to begenerated and sold to the government/government run bodies or agenciesrunning schools. Advertising to generate additional revenues

Content to be used in primary schools in rural areas as a

substitute/supplement to primary teaching

The content will be initially taught by volunteers and later on by primaryteachers.

The idea is to make a difference by educating disadvantaged children inan interesting way that makes them want to come to school rather thanachieving a minimum level of literacy

The model is scalable and sustainable. Will also be profitable fromapproximately the 4th year onwards.


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Step 1: The Set-Up

Hire 2-3 professionals (basically educational consultants) and a fewvolunteers (local youth, students, young working professionals)

Select quality content available on the internet for primaryeducation as well as let the professionals design content

The content should be: Graphical, audio-visual, including colored, animated pictures and

models

In synchronization with innovative pedagogy

Local content so that children can relate to surroundings

The volunteers will disseminate the content in the chosen schools andalso give feedback for designing further content


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Step 2: Content Generation

Use of open source software to translate content from:

English to Hindi (and gradually to other regional languages)

Handwritten to digital format

Some of the NLP software tools that can be used are:

MANTRA-Rajbhasha (http://mantra-rajbhasha.cdac.in/mantrarajbhasha/)

Anglabharti (http://www.cse.iitk.ac.in/users/langtech/anglabharti.htm)

SCIM (http://www.scim-im.org/downloads/scim_download)For writing

Indian languages, it has at least 3 IMES available: i-trans, inscript andphonetic

Free OCR software for Indian languages can be used to upload handwritten

vernacular content (e.g. quality notes in vernacular by some expert teacher)
http://mantra-rajbhasha.cdac.in/mantrarajbhasha/http://www.cse.iitk.ac.in/users/langtech/anglabharti.htmhttp://www.scim-im.org/downloads/scim_downloadhttp://www.scim-im.org/downloads/scim_downloadhttp://www.scim-im.org/downloads/scim_downloadhttp://www.scim-im.org/downloads/scim_downloadhttp://www.cse.iitk.ac.in/users/langtech/anglabharti.htmhttp://mantra-rajbhasha.cdac.in/mantrarajbhasha/http://mantra-rajbhasha.cdac.in/mantrarajbhasha/http://mantra-rajbhasha.cdac.in/mantrarajbhasha/


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Step 3: Selling the Content

Creation of internet portal where the content will be uploadedand sold to local primary schools either through the:

GovernmentAdvantage: One large customer instead of several small customers

Governing bodies of schools/local governing bodies likePanchayats and NagarpalikasAdvantage: Better dissemination and collective responsibility

Another source of revenue will be advertisements on the portal

Companies targeting rural customerstractors, insurance etc Aggregate ad spend on the internet in India expected to rise

to $220 million


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Project to be piloted in Himachal Pradesh

State government has about 1400 schools with minimum of 5

computers. Total of around 10,500 primary schools

Not all computers connected to the Internet but not a big

problem for schools to get the same

Medium of education is Hindi

Project can be started targeting 20 schools in first year, 100

schools and gradually expanding to cover the entire state by

4

th

year States like Maharashtra are also trying to implement

computerization of primary schools under the Maharashtra

School Projectscheme


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The ifs and buts.

Why will the government buy such content?

Many agencies of the government are fishing for such projects for SSA

Many NGOs are facilitating primary government schools in urban, semi-urban areas in such initiatives

What are the glitches foreseen? Encountering government red tape and bureaucratic delays

Getting internet connection in the schools

What is the alternate Plan B in case there is no computer/internet?

Laptops can be carried by the volunteers. Cost to be factored in while

negotiating with the government The content will be made available in a CD

The advertisers will be accommodated in the content, e.g. showing aparticular brand of Tractor being used by the animated character


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The ifs and buts.

Why will the advertisers support the project?

Rural markets have huge untapped potential but rural marketing is tough

It can also be pitched as CSR for the organization

Internet penetration pegged to reach 6% (72 million subscribers) by 2011

Who will be the volunteers and why will they be selected? The volunteers can be students or working professionals with a passion to

make a difference and equally committed to the cause of education

Initial selection through personal contacts, with increasing scale, maybeinterviews and aptitude

Volunteers get a stipend, based on the hours of work put in, say 10K permonth

What is the approximate break-even period? The project should break even in approximately 3-4 years at most


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Cost & Revenue Estimates

Cost Head Amount (Rs)

Initial Set up cost (office and others) 0.5 million

Salaries (5 employees+10 volunteers) 1.2 million per annum

Other variable costs 8,000 per school targeted annually

Miscellaneous 20% of sum of above costs

Assumptions:

One more employee required for an additional set of 10 schools in 2nd

year and one per 20 schools in 3rd year

Straight line depreciation at 20% of all fixed costs

Revenue Source Amount (Rs)

Sale of solution 20,000 per school annually

Advertisement on the portal 0.3 million annually (expected to grow

with increase in number of schools)

Education Pradipta Banerjee XLRI

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