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Can the EdTech Companies bridge the gap?

Shruthin Pasunoori

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Whether and how Khan Academy has solved the access, scale and cost
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concerns with regards to education?

Khan Academy’s beginnings date back to 2004, when Sal Khan’s cousin
asked him to remotely tutor her daughter in math. Khan was happy to help
and more than qualified, given his three MIT degrees and his Harvard MBA.
Access Scale
• Sal Kahn initially started guiding the students over phone
• Initially it was hard for him to even sustain the model due to
and tele conferences.
financial issues. But he received a huge boost in the form of a
• Soon as he began to start see some pattern so, he built an very generous donation from Anne Dore, which reignited the
exercise platform for teaching and he videotaped the hope of making it big.
lectures and uploaded them on Youtube for viewing the
lectures at the convenience of students. • Organisations like Google, Microsoft etc., came forward and
• Since Youtube is a free Social Media, viewers could easily started funding “Khan Academy”, through which Sal Khan could
access the lectures whenever and only whatever they start an organization.
wanted. • Many helpful hands joined the cause and word of mouth played
its role in scaling up the organization.
Cost
• From the learner’s perspective, learning at Khan Academy is always free! All of Khan Academy’s library of trusted,
standards-aligned videos, articles, practice questions, and lessons are completely free for anyone who wants to use them.
• From Sal Khan’s perspective, cost that is incurred in creating the content was sourced through the many generous donors
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Why should the state/private sector run still continue to run physical
education institutions when models such as Khan Academy could
work well?

Not really – because both have their unique characteristics that make them
worthwhile. People will learn to use the two together. However, when it comes
to the debate of one over the other specifically for school/college education,
the truth is that online learning can never really replace an in-campus
experience and online education should only be treated as an add on.

• Education is not just about studying, it helps in holistic development of a student, which lacks if education is
imparted only through this model.

• Only classrooms provide a socially interactive environment for an individual’s interpersonal growth.
• Classrooms are equipped to bring out the creative side of a student.
• Offline classes give students a competitive edge and promotes learning in sustainable environment.
• Students can easily clear the doubts they are facing understanding some sections, which provides to be
insightful for others as well. Thus, creating space for cumulative growth.
• Finally, not everything can be learned through online.
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If there are any concerns/problems you identify with the Khan Academy
model, what are they? Are there other initiatives/companies that have been
able to solve these issues?

Sal Khan started the organization as a Not-for-profit kind and has been running it that way since its
inception. Few of the biggest concerns that is raised on this model are:-

• Courses are unstructured

• A student after watching repeatedly has not got the concept of certain topic, what is next step?

In case of India, a lot of for-profit organizations studied the model closely and could mitigate the
concerns by precisely structuring the courses and having a teaching assistant at availability for most
duration of the course.

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If given an opportunity how would you address those concerns/problems and
come up with a venture of your own?

A few subtle improvements that I would implement are

• Substitute the traditional black screen teaching that is currently followed on Khan Academy, I would
record a video of a lecture that is taken in the class and make it available for the viewers.
• A short video logs for the frequently asked questions with more graphics added will be uploaded.

I firmly believe that remembering and retaining ability of a student increases when a student learns a
concept and could imagine it in a form of a motion picture. In whichever the topics I can, I would strive
to teach the concepts like a movie and maintain an easy accessibility for reaching out to teachers to clear
their doubts.

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Thank You