Gupta: wholly experiential pedagogy
DINESH GUPTA is the Delhi-based founder-CEO of Vikalp India Pvt. Ltd (VIL, estb 2010), an edtech company which over the past 15 years has leveraged the power of technology and the research expertise of eminent educators to develop a well-designed experiential learning program for K-12 education that has been successfully implemented in 300 private schools countrywide. In 2018, Vikalp India promoted Vikalp Online School (VOS) which provides activities-based online schooling to over 5,000 K-12 students in India, Europe, US and the Middle East. Taught by 58 dedicated VOS teachers, these students are given the option of choosing the NIOS (National Institute of Open Schooling) or CBSE board for their class X and XII board examinations.
Newspeg. Last August, a New York-based assessment agency, Acumen Academy, conducted a lean data study, interviewing VOS parents and teachers to assess the impact of the online school on students and teachers. The study revealed that 80 percent of parents reported improvements in their children’s exam scores; 83 percent parents observed improvement in their child’s quality of life; 95 percent observed an increase in students’ capability to enhance learning outcomes. Moreover, all teachers (100 percent) reported improvement in students’ interest levels and conceptual learning capability.
History. An alum of Jawaharlal Nehru University (JNU), Delhi University and Asian College of Journalism, Chennai, Gupta began his career as a journalist in Tehelka, building a good reputation in high-quality education reporting. After working with Tehelka for three years, he ventured into the textbooks publishing industry with the mission to make school textbooks easy and enjoyable for children.
“But I soon realised that the era of textbooks learning was over,” he recalls. In 2010, Gupta together with JNU acquaintance and Indian School of Business, Hyderabad graduate Neha Chowdhry, invested Rs.3.5 crore (from their personal savings) to promote Vikalp (‘alternative’ in Hindi) India Pvt. Ltd to develop “innovative experiential pedagogies for maths, science and language learning”.
The business model of the company was — and remains — establishing maths, science and language learning laboratories in partner schools and training teachers to put them to best use. Schools that sign up with VIL pay the company Rs.750 per student annually to avail experiential learning to enhance students’ learning outcomes in these core subjects. Currently, 300 schools in Delhi NCR, Punjab, Karnataka and Jharkhand have signed up with VIL.
Direct talk. “Our VOS teaching pedagogy is wholly experiential, without lectures. Learning concepts are introduced through physical learning tools, mobile apps, multimedia videos and power point presentations. Students engage in prescribed activities and discover concepts on their own. Books are introduced much later. In short, students first learn by doing and study theory later. Learning is also enabled by our positive 1:6 teacher-student ratio which helps teachers to pay individual attention to each child. Moreover, VOS teachers are intensively trained and enabled by AI-driven technologies. As a result, the quality of teaching-learning is far ahead of traditional schools where students are taught using the blackboard and textbooks,” says Gupta. Annual tuition fees range between Rs.25,000-57,000.
Future plans. Gupta is aware that for online education to become the acceptable alternative to bricks-and-mortar school education, VOS needs to become acceptable beyond Indian boundaries. “Currently, we are limited to offering our online learning to English-speaking countries. But I believe there is an opportunity to offer our English language curriculum to non-English speaking countries by using new instant language translation digital technologies. Moreover, we are finalizing a high-potential project to provide a lifelong learning companion for every student. This AI-driven companion will be fully aware about the student’s interests and goals and will build on this knowledge to help her decide what to learn, where and how,” says Gupta.
Wind in your sails!
Paromita Sengupta
