Very often, people think that teachers who run tuition centres have it easy. No need to check homework, no records, no attendance...right? Not quite. With one of the largest after-school tutoring markets in the world, India's tuition teachers are now being swamped with all these 'administrative' concerns that have taken away their edge - great tutoring. To help them regain their mojo, this start-up by two youngsters called Classplus might hold the key.
Classplus not only records attendance of every student, but it also helps tutors schedule quizzes send notes, prep material and even links so that their time is freed up for teaching. Apart from all this — which is sort of an answer to every parents' prayer — Classplus updates parents on the progress of their child and give them detailed reports on how well the child has performed in the online tests conducted every now and then.
To shine more light on the quirks and uses of Classplus we caught up with one of the co-founders, an IIT Roorkee graduate, Mukul Rustagi and this is what he had to say, "Classplus was co-founded by Bhaswat Agarwal and me after an idea we had during our JEE coaching. What led us to start this app was when we were preparing for our JEE exams our coaching centre was shut down ten months prior to our actual examinations. Apparently, the parents were not being updated regarding their child's progress and that made them very unhappy. We spent those ten months brainstorming over what we can do to change the whole situation. After months of introspection and multiple efforts and pilot models, we launched Classplus and this turned out to be the game-changer for us."
What inspired them to start this new venture? "We always believed that teachers had a fundamental role to play in every child's life. Every teacher's role in a student's life matters and, come what may, no technology can ever replace the assurance that a teacher gives parents. But in this day and age technology is also equally important in engaging students and children and Classplus is what bridges that gap between teachers and technology," says Mukul. He goes on to add why he saw a need for tech-revolution in the field, "We decided to build a self-learning system that would break the age-old, teacher-student interaction and bring in or set new standards to teaching. what is different about this is we don't deny or cut-off a teacher's input. we leverage the teacher's input and the tech-input and the students and parents then receive the best of both worlds."
Mukul then goes on to explain the features of his very new and convenient tutor-app, "The mobile-app/web portal for coaching institutes can be used to automate classroom activities like sharing content, recording attendance, tracking your upcoming fees and pending payments. Parents will be updated on progress and growth of their children and the students can give in online tests at any point in time." The additional perks of the ever-convenient app are that it is free of cost for any student who wishes to engage with it. Highlighting this Mukul goes on to say, "From a teacher's perspective this app is chargeable as it is of assistance not just in all of the above-specified functions, but serves to help a tutor in carrying out multiple responsibilities as the juggle between being a teacher, a business individual and administrator etc all with regards to tutoring. But for students this app is not chargeable at all, they are obligated to only pay the tuition centre or coaching institute they applied for."
