Class Saathi

A large number of students in Government run public schools and affordable private schools in India are behind grade proficiency levels, and the COVID-19 school closure only exacerbated this. 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 further 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. In such classrooms, it becomes almost impossible to engage students' critical thinking and have conversations beyond completing the syllabus. Without enquiry-based learning and the space to engage, students spend most of their time on rote learning. They don't engage in conversations about their context, the environment, climate, civic action, or anything else beyond the classroom and examinations.

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. Teachers are then forced to again resort to rote learning, and the cycle of learning without critical thinking continues.

Without any focused intervention, this will result in 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 engagement and performance tracking in the education ecosystem without any hassles for all stakeholders.

Class Saathi empowers all stakeholders in the education ecosystem to improve learning outcomes and provide space for critical thinking by enabling individualized student engagement within the classroom, and adaptive learning outside the classroom. Class Saathi also generates 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 software for teachers, parents and administrators. Clicker devices have been proven to be effective tools in the teaching-learning process, increasing engagement significantly. 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 30,000 questions in all subjects of Class 3 to Class 10, 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 8 million questions have been solved on Class Saathi as of May, 2023.

Once teachers have a clear understanding of student levels, they are able to go one step further and engage them in practical learning, critical thinking, and socioemotional learning, and make them more aware of their responsibilities as citizens. The information also allows them to see specifically what skills the individual students and classroom in general possess, and engage accordingly.

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.

A third-party impact assessment partner has also evaluated our impact with consolidated baseline and endline reports, to further push our learning in our recent large scale deployment in public schools, 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, that works without internet and electricity. Primarily, it is the combination of a clicker system and software, which allows teachers to engage students, ask questions and conduct formative assessments, and view learning insights 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).

More importantly, we have built the world's first Bluetooth based clicker device, which allows it to connect to smartphones, interactive panels, computers, and run on any platform (Windows, Mac, Android, iOS, Linux). Each student is given a clicker device to respond, interact and learn in the classroom, which allows teachers to always understand their progress, and make focused learning plans that involve more than just memorization and rote learning.

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 in State Government and Central Government run schools and networks in India first and then go global; beginning with Nigeria, where we have received significant interest

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

At Class Saathi, we believe that what cannot be measured, cannot be managed; hence our theory of change is that if we are able to collect key learning data of students on a regular basis, we can build actionable insights to strategically solve for learning gaps. The snapshot below captures the essence of our theory of change:

Class Saathi consists of two elements, both designed in-house, and proprietary:

1. A clicker device for in-classroom engagement, which 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. AI powered software that runs on any platform, which gives teachers insights into student and classroom learning levels through rich, easy to use dashboards for teachers and administrators to create data-driven strategy for focused and timely interventions. The beyond classroom app for students also adapts to learning levels to give them questions that help them learn and build conceptual understanding.

Class Saathi is built on the principle that every child, no matter their socio-economic background, deserves a quality learning experience. 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. TagHive also has a non-discrimination hiring policy to be inclusive to all genders and identities. 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. We have also built 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. 

We have diverse revenue streams through which we bring Class Saathi to schools, such as:

1. Direct sales - We currently have a dedicated sales team of 10, spread across India, generating $100,000 revenue per month

2. Partnerships - We currently work with 8 reputed technology partners across India to reach out to public and private schools

3. Government projects - We also work with government tenders directly in consortiums, and have recently won a bid for a model schools program in one of the largest states in India

The unit economics in each of these revenue streams is attractive, and as we scale, we will be able to cover fixed time costs and be in a position to deploy a part of the profits back to research to enhance the solution.

We are on track to cross the breakeven point in the second half of 2023.

1. Seed Funding from Samsung Ventures
2. Series A Funding from Forest Partners
3. Upcoming Series B Funding
4. Revenue generated from implementation in 2000+ South Korean Schools
5. Revenue generated from implementation in 2000+ Indian schools (Both Public and Private Schools)