India Launches National Ed-Tech Project 

By Hillary Hoppock

March-April 2020

The educational system in India is one of the largest in the world with 260 million students and 10 million teachers.  India requires all children 6-14 years to go to school. However a 97%  attendance rate does not necessarily guarantee learning.  It is estimated that 6 million children in India are completing 8 years of compulsory schooling with alarmingly low learning levels. 

Recognizing the central role of teachers in delivering curriculum to classrooms with a great diversity of student backgrounds and learning levels, the government of India initiated a nationwide educational technology solution to support teachers in 2017.  DIKSHA, the national teacher platform, was developed to offer primary through secondary school teachers curriculum-linked resource to help prepare for class or to use with students in teaching.   

The Energized Textbook

The signature feature of DIKSHA’s platform is the Energized Textbook, which uses QR codes to link users to relevant digital content that extends and enriches the textbook curriculum. Using a smartphone, Android device or laptop both teachers and students can scan QR codes embedded in the textbook to view videos, animation, storyboards, practice lessons, and interactive games. 

 There are several essential components of DIKSHA designed to support India’s teachers.  The national teacher platform encourages teachers throughout India to share original content and uses teachers who are subject matter experts in their field to take the lead as content creators for the national platform. Additionally DIKSHA provides assessment tools for teachers to find out their strengths and areas for improvement as well as offering coaching and professional development opportunities.   

Implementation of India’s National Teacher Platform

A leader in the effort to transform the school education system in India, the non-profit Central Square Foundation (CSF) is helping in the implementation of DIKSHA. Initially in 2018 DIKSHA was successfully piloted in five states and the scale-up plan for the rest of the country began in 2019. Central Square Team Lead for DIKSHA Sarthak Satapathy explains the broad scope of the program, “CSF assists in setting up and managing DIKSHA, the largest ed-tech initiative in the country, planning the implementation strategy and state engagements to be implemented in all 30 States and United Territories with 15 languages across the country.”

Seemingly a world away, the International Innovation Corps (IIC) of the Harris School of Public Policy at the University of Chicago was invited by CSF to manage DIKSHA’s implementation in India’s western coastal state Gujarat.  IIC Executive Director Kunal Pal sees this program as a logical fit for IIC’s social impact fellowship program, “IIC was launched in 2014, growing out of discussions with senior bureaucrats and government officials in India who wanted entities like the University of Chicago to offer critical capacity support to help better conceive and operationalize their programs.”

Pal notes Chicago’s IIC has a history of partnering with dozens of government and nonprofit organizations in India. He notes, “Mostly as a part of teams, we have placed and mentored fellows on high impact projects across the country through the University of Chicago’s New Delhi center. The idea of the International Innovation Corps is to connect the demand for strong talent within the public and nonprofit sectors in India with a supply of motivated young professionals eager to make a difference by serving as fellows or project associates to support the projects.”

The Gujarat Ed-Tech Project

IIC Project Associates in the Gujarat Ed-Tech Project are assigned by Central Square Foundation to manage the project by working with government officials to follow the structured timeline and streamline the implementation process.  A major focus for the IIC team is to support the platform’s digital curriculum, essential to DIKSHA’s energized textbook feature. According to IIC Project Associate and Gujarat Team Member Harsh Doshi, “Our role is to ensure that all QR codes in the textbook, scanned to access the DIKSHA platform, are mapped to quality digital content. The aim is to provide contextualized, engaging and relevant content in the local language Gujarati. This digital content is either pooled from existing channels, or is created freshly by teachers who are subject matter experts from the state.”  

Doshi notes one of the primary goals of the project is to increase adoption of the platform by teachers and students of Gujarat. “The objective is to generate more awareness about DIKSHA through various communication channels and events, and increase consumption by conducting trainings, leveraging  grass-root organizations and social media.”  

Doshi highlights the government's role in ensuring teachers are trained and comfortable using the platform.  He proudly states, “To date, Gujarat has witnessed more than 1.6 million (16 lakh) scans, and more than 1.5 million (15 lakh) content plays having put QRs in just six textbooks. We aim to increase the number of textbooks in Gujarati and keep the momentum going to reach all our teachers and students.”

 Hillary Hoppock is a freelance writer, former newspaper publisher and reporter based in Orinda, California.