Class Saathi

Students in Government run public schools and affordable private schools in India are routinely behind grade proficiency levels. Teachers and administrators have no insight into each student's progress specially considering the scale, and thus are unable to take timely corrective action, leading to student dropouts and further increasing learning gaps.

According to the latest report by the Ministry of Education, India, the prescribed student-teacher ratio by the Right to Education Act, 2009 is 30:1 for the Primary level and 35:1 for the Upper Primary level; yet Government schools in many states exceed that number significantly.

Research also correlates student achievement to the number of students per teacher, with lower numbers significantly showing an increase in learning outcomes. With India’s high population and the recommended student-teacher ratio at under 15:1, low student-teacher engagement can lead to wider learning gaps that are also exacerbated by the COVID-19 pandemic, and eventually, dropouts.

Additionally, the burden of administrative tasks and a lack of accountability and transparency at scale in the education ecosystem makes it more challenging to serve the students with highest need.

Furthermore, the COVID-19 pandemic has, on an average, resulted in a 92% loss in language ability and 82% loss in mathematical ability across grades.

Without any focused intervention, this will result in a large number of student dropouts, and a major disadvantage for students who have not been supported to bridge this learning gap. We believe that what cannot be measured cannot be managed, and our solution is designed to bring data driven decision making in the education ecosystem without any hassles for all stakeholders.

Class Saathi empowers all stakeholders in the education ecosystem to increase learning outcomes and reduce dropouts by enabling individualized student engagement within the classroom, adaptive learning outside the classroom, and easy to use data to drive strategy and support for teachers, administrators and parents.

It is a combination of a clicker device for each student and a mobile application for teachers, parents and administrators. After teaching a concept in a class, the teacher can ask a few questions using Class Saathi to gauge the understanding level of each and every student. The administrators and the parents can also see the learning data on their respective apps. Currently, the Class Saathi app currently has over 25,000 questions on Maths & Science for students of Class 6 to Class 10 in English and Hindi, and is based on the CBSE curriculum.

It also has the ability to work with any grade/curriculum/language and subject, depending on requirements from governments, partners, or organizations. Over 6.1 million questions have been solved on Class Saathi as of March 10, 2022.

Class Saathi is aligned with the Indian National Education Policy 2020's objectives of micro-learning and continuous assessments. Our “Data First” approach ensures greater accountability at all levels. Class Saathi does not require schools to upgrade their infrastructure ("no internet" and "no electricity" are no more the limiting factors in making classrooms smart).

There are over 250 million students going to school in India, among which 130 million go to Government run public schools; and 80 million go to affordable private schools. Both these segments are often starved of basic resources, which number around 200 million students, a vast majority.

These schools typically suffer from teacher shortages and basic infrastructural deficits. According to a Central Government database called UDISE, only about 22% of schools have internet access, or any technological intervention. This means that teachers are still burdened by administrative tasks and don't have a satisfactory understanding of individual student progress, to create customized strategies. Additionally, a large number of Government run public schools and affordable private schools cater to students from low socio-economic backgrounds, where enrolment is low, dropouts are high; and teachers are extremely overwhelmed.

Class Saathi is an integrated solution that empowers teachers to teach better, administrators to understand learning outcomes of large groups of schools more, and students to learn from content that adapts to their learning levels; thus bringing transparency, accountability and visibility into the ecosystem.

The Class Saathi team is based out of South Korea and India, and consists of members spanning countries, cultures, disciplines and areas of expertise. Since our team consists of both technology experts at the cutting edge and seasoned educators, teachers and social impact professionals; Class Saathi is uniquely positioned to solve for challenges with all perspectives accounted for.

From our partners and team on ground, we are consistently collecting feedback and conducting need analyses to build functions to empower the ecosystem even further; and building a two way dialogue to prototype our developments before wide rollout.

We will also be engaging a third party impact assessment partner to further push our learning in our upcoming scale deployment in one of the largest states in India, Uttar Pradesh.

The primary model of Class Saathi is to integrate into the public education ecosystem in India through solution integration, policy advocacy, and technology sharing. 

Through MIT Solve, we hope to:

1. Gain support on our business and expansion model

2. Strategize about fundraising and connecting capital to deploy our solutions for students in need where Government budgets don't exist

3. Create a better last mile delivery model with partners in a similar space

4. Connect with global Solvers working on similar challenges to create synergies

Class Saathi is a unified platform that connects students, teachers and administrators to improve the learning outcomes of students. Primarily, it is the combination of a clicker system and mobile app, which allows teachers to track student performance easily, and conduct formative assessments instantly within and outside the classroom. All data collected is available to view in real time through a rich dashboard, along with analyses for each stakeholder using the platform (students, parents, teachers, and administrators).

Our platform has proprietary Artificial Intelligence models that understand student learning levels and present them with questions appropriate to their learning level during self learning (quizzes, mock tests, practice). These models adapt to any content, language, grade, and curriculum. We also offer a content dashboard that allows content to be added by any implementing entity (Governments, organizations, and more) within minutes.

Most importantly, it works without internet and electricity in classrooms, and is the the world's first clicker device that connects to smartphones. It's also specifically designed to integrate and empower, rather than disrupt the current ecosystem, and is aligned to the country's education policy principles.

Over the next 5 years, our goals are to:

1. Implement Class Saathi (both at-home learning app and in-classroom assessment solution) in State Government and Central Government run schools and networks in India first and then go global

2. Integrate into Indian educational policy based implementation, and relevant National Education Technology frameworks through technology platform sharing, service provision, or technology partnerships

3. Partner with large scale nonprofits and foundations to implement Class Saathi across their school networks

Through the following data, we are measuring our progress to goal, with additional layers based on socio-economic factors:

For Students

1. Student attendance

2. Student response time

3. Student learning outcome shifts

4. Student retention/dropouts

5. Student feedback on platform usage

6. Students completing primary/secondary education

7. Student proficiency levels at each grade

For Parents

1. Parent engagement frequency

2. Parent engagement feedback on platform features and visibility

For Teachers

1. Teacher usage of features

2. Teacher feedback on platform usage on frontend and backend

3. Teacher and parent engagement frequency and feedback on conversations

For Administrators

1. Administrator usage

2. Administrator feedback on platform

Class Saathi consists of two elements:

1. A clicker device for in-classroom engagement, which is designed in house and uses Bluetooth Low Energy/Bluetooth Beacon Technology to connect to the teacher smartphone. It is the world's first clicker device to do so, and works without internet and electricity.

2. An AI powered app that adapts to student learning levels to give them questions that help them learn and build conceptual understanding, as well as displays rich, easy to use data for teachers and administrators to create data-driven strategy for focused and timely interventions.

Class Saathi is built on the principle that every child, no matter their socio-economic background, deserves a quality education. To build such a solution, we require a team coming in from different perspectives and cultures, and have committed to reaching out to and onboarding team members regardless of their previous workplace and/or experience, as long as they are able to commit to our vision.

All our opportunities and processes are designed for equity, even if the mandate says otherwise. For example, our Prevention of Sexual Harassment Policy is aligned to India's POSH law, but also goes above and beyond by including all genders in it. We are committed to creating a fair and equitable organization and also customize our recruitment process by language and rigor to account for barriers for team members coming in from diverse socio-economic backgrounds.

As an organization that sees a shared union of operation between two countries, we are highly intolerant of any behaviour that is racist, discriminatory and destructive to personal safety and rights. We see great value in social and professional cohesion between our employees in India and South Korea and so it is of great importance that this union remain untarnished by all or any forms of this discrimination.

Class Saathi is implemented in public and private school networks, foundations, and organizations either through direct funding or funding through partner organizations.

We charge a one time fee for the Class Saathi Clicker Bag, which includes support, maintenance, trainings, and content. The software included in the solution is completely free of cost. Going forward, we plan to add additional premium features on a subscription based model.

For a school of 500 students, the Class Saathi Clicker Solution costs only 0.8USD per student, per year for 5 years. 

Given the nature of the Class Saathi platform, there is little hand holding required once the deployment is done and the benefits are showcased to the audience. At no additional cost, the program can run on its own. We currently have alternate revenue streams to sustain the organization (as shown in Exhibit 1 below). 

Exhibit 1: Revenue Streams of TagHive

Our upcoming deployment in one of the largest states in India will also help us evolve our current product line for both Indian and overseas markets, where we are already making revenue. Primarily, it will focus on creating evidence of scale and impact that will fuel expansion and attract additional investments from funding partners.

1. Seed Funding from Samsung Ventures
2. Series A Funding from Forest Partners
3. Revenue generated from implementation in 1000+ South Korean Schools
4. Grant from Ford Foundation for Uttar Pradesh Deployment