Edtech startups look at local language courses to tap states, go hinterland

Mindler, an app that helps students and parents to choose career path, customised its tool in Hindi

Byju Raveendran, the founder of Byju's the learning app for school students has seen more small town users for its tool that helps students learn concepts better.

As the English focused app gets more popular, the firm is seeing demand for local language content for users - students in language schools wanting to learn as effectively as others, that it is now planning these courses in Hindi first and then in other vernaculars.

“We are just analysing how we can start providing content in local languages. We will definitely start with Hindi, because that’s the largest segment,” says Raveendran, founder and chief executive officer of BYJU's, the multimedia educational content firm that recently secured funding from  Chan-Zuckerberg initiative, the philanthropy arm of Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg and his wife Priscilla Chan.
 

The fact that the early adopters of Byju’s app are not just from the metros and are location-agnostic validates Raveendran’s move. The app is used across more than 1,700 cities and towns in India and has more than 6.5 million downloads, of which nearly 300,000 are paid subscribers.

At about 254.8 million in the Class 1-12 bracket, India has one of the largest school student population globally. India’s school system is largely government funded where many states impose local language as a medium of instruction. So far, the focus of education tech firms have been on tapping the creamy layer who study in private schools, governments across states also are adapting newer  learning methods to teach students and improve their overall education. This push is what is making firms to collaborate with states to provide language teaching on mobile apps and online.

Come April, Meritnation will start providing content in Hindi, targeting the state board schools. The company, which works on a freemium model, has about 11 million free users on its platform.

“We get a lot of traffic from CBSE board students. Some of the state boards are much bigger than CBSE and most of them teach in local languages, and hence, the need to cater to these students is huge,” said Pavan Chauhan, co-founder and managing director of Meritnation.

Currently, Meritnation delivers textbook content on mobile and online in English to students across educational boards including Maharashtra, Tamil Nadu and Kerala.

Mindler, a technology-driven platform that helps students and parents to choose appropriate career path, customised its tool in Hindi as it partnered with the Uttar Pradesh government recently.

“We have a tool that can be customised to work in any languages and are looking to work with more government-run schools to maximise the reach,” says Prateek Bhargava, chief executive officer and founder, Mindler.

The company basically targets higher secondary school students. According to Bhargava, as career counselling is gaining importance, parents and students even from the lower strata of the society want to analyse the various career options, and have come a long way from the traditional engineering and medical streams. This opens up a huge opportunity for startups like Mindler and to come out with more tools compatible to these masses.