Digital Education

Budget: Govt to set up National Digital Library for children, adolescents

A National Digital Library for children and adolescents will be set up for facilitating the availability of quality books across geographies, languages, genres and levels, and device agnostic accessibility, Union Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman announced Wednesday. In her Budget speech, she said states will be encouraged to set up physical libraries for them at panchayat and ward levels and provide infrastructure for accessing the National Digital Library resources. To build a culture of reading and to make up for pandemic-time learning loss, the National Book Trust, Children's Book Trust and other sources will be encouraged to provide and replenish non-curricular titles in regional languages and English to these physical libraries. "Collaboration with NGOs that work in literacy will also be a part of this initiative. To inculcate financial literacy, financial sector regulators and organizations will be encouraged to provide age-appropriate reading material to these libraries,"

TMS Ep339: Online gaming, EV revolution, IT sector, Digital University

Will self-regulation work for online gaming in India? Will commercial vehicles drive the EV revolution? Will IT sector succumb to global headwinds? What's the National Digital University? Answers here

Indian edtech major Simplilearn trains its sights on boot camps

The Indian edtech major is gearing up to compete with global majors in the space

upGrad-backed Harappa launches in US, to upskill 55,000 managers in 3 yrs

Harappa founders cite huge scope as 82% Americans are likely to quit their jobs because of a bad manager, while 44% managers feel they are unprepared for their jobs

What layoffs? Ronnie Screwvala-led upGrad on a hectic expansion spree

In a studied contrarian move, the Ronnie Screwvala-led edtech company is on a hectic expansion spree

Amazon to shut down its edtech platform in India, refund customers

Edtech offering was launched last year to cater to students preparing for engineering colleges' JEE

Ronnie Screwvala-led upGrad to hire 1,400 amid edtech sector turbulence

Signs up new leases for 335K sq ft space in Mumbai, Bengaluru, Pune and Noida

Byju's raises $250 mn from existing investors, valuation remains at $22 bn

Regardless of the adverse macroeconomic conditions, Byju's founder Byju Raveendran said 2022-23 is set to be the best year in terms of revenue, growth and profitability

Lawmaker Karti P Chidambaram asks ICAI to investigate Byju's finances

Says nearly 81% of Byju's operating revenue for FY2021 constitutes sale of products like tablets, SD cards and laptops, which is a blatant misrepresentation of facts to classify hardware as edutech

Unacademy 'not efficient' in finances, will shut some businesses: CEO

Unacademy, valued at $3.44 billion, will restrict business class travel end meals and snacks as complimentary perk at the startup

Covid pandemic impact: When technology marries school education

Under the Digital India initiative, the government has taken extensive steps to boost digital education activities

Online math class platform Cuemath raises $57 mn, tops $407 mn valuation

The funding was led by Alpha Wave and the capital would help the firm to expand to over 100 countries by FY23

Byju's COO Mrinal Mohit may head India ops as Raveendran focuses on global

Founder may look at the US and Middle East, has been meeting investors and potential acquisition target firms there, say sources

Byju's unveils 'Education for All' to empower 5 mn children by 2025

The programme aims at democratising education by ensuring that children across all economic backgrounds get equal access to quality learning opportunities.

Bengal govt partners with Edtech start-up to drive digital learning

The pupils of state-run and government-aided schools will be able to access the e-learning portal

Remote learning setting back millions of children in South Asia: UNICEF

In India, 80% of children aged 14-18 reported lower levels of learning than when physically at school

Upgrad aims to close March 2022 at $500-million revenue run rate

upGrad, South Asia's largest online higher education company, in its recently held company meeting announced that it aims to close March'22 at half a Billion Dollar Revenue Run Rate.Highlighting the future of online higher education, Ronnie Screwvala, Co-founder, and Chairman firmly believes Higher Edtech is the frontrunner in the overall Education space. "There is just a lot of buzz, and fund 'fan' following in the K12 space worldwide, but the real growth and stable revenues will come from Higher Education when the pandemic settles - in the next couple of years, Higher edtech sector will overtake K12 in emerging and mature markets too.""upGrad is now best-placed, being the most integrated Higher Edtech company - spanning all aspects of LifeLongLearning - from under-grads to test prep to being the first port of call for colleges/universities to go digital through technology & SaaS enablement, to offering degrees in the most sought-after fields for learners to build their careers

Edtech startup Testbook now has 1.8 million paid users, 18 mn subscribers

Edtech startup Testbook on Monday said it has crossed over 1.8 mn paid users from the total of 18 mn registered users on its platform

Ed-tech platform Vedantu pledges Rs 15 cr to aid Covid-hit kids in India

Vedantu introduced the 'Help India Learn' initiative under which a fund of Rs 15 crore has been set up to assist nearly 12,000 children impacted due to the Covid pandemic in the country.

Coffee with BS: How 'free thinker' Sal Khan is pushing all boundaries

Anjuli Bhargava writes how Khan is bringing every student on the planet into his fold