STEPapp, a gamified learning app, which was launched by Amitabh Bachchan in Mumbai last year has recently collaborated with the Ministry of Tribal Affairs to bring their innovative and advanced learning experience to underprivileged students across India. Through this association, STEPapp will be available to more than 300 Eklavya Model Residential Schools (EMRS) across states including Madhya Pradesh, Maharashtra, Odisha, and 16 others. The gamified learning content is readily available to the schools for initiating the learning process. We spoke to Praveen Tyagi, Founder and CEO of STEPapp to understand how this collaboration will help tribal, underprivileged children get access to digital learning. Excerpts from the conversation:
How will the collaboration with the Tribal Ministry help underprivileged children?
The STEPapp team has always aimed to provide universal access to quality education for every child in every corner of the country using technology and gamification. The collaboration with the Tribal Ministry for implementation of STEPapp in all the tribal schools has given us an enormous opportunity to take a step forward towards our mission to create a bank of meritorious children who will be transformed into national assets. Tribal children are deprived of quality education and high-technological learning experiences but they possess a strong will to learn. Every concept in STEPapp is explained using animations that give visual clarity to the child. While playing on STEPapp, the child’s response time to a question, his weaknesses and strengths are all identified and informed to parents and teachers via mails and messages. This collaboration with the ministry will help those children to acquire a gamified learning experience and achieve greater success in their careers.
What is STEPapp doing in terms of education and digital accessibility to tribal children?
STEPapp has been implemented in 242 tribal schools, with 35,167 registered students, in 21 States across India. The mandate signed between STEPapp and the ministry will benefit more than 1.5 lakh students from grades 1-12 across the country immediately and will expand the scope in the coming years. I always felt that education needs a level playing field that allows students from all backgrounds equal opportunity to step up and be rewarded based on their merit and sincerity. The digital revolution has provided us with a great opportunity to do just that. Through this association, we will enhance the students' performance in school exams as well as in competitive exams. This will also enable schools to measure the students' learning outcomes through our app's dashboards.
STEPapp will be available to more than 300 Eklavya Model Residential Schools (EMRS) across states. Through them how will STEPapp facilitate digital learning?
STEPapp dashboard helps in analysis of a student's learning outcome at every stage such as the main topics, sub-topics, that will help teachers and educators make effective decisions. Our app perfectly acts as a homework app for students to revise and study at home. With our dashboard, teachers can track the students’ progress at ease and their convenience. Additionally, students will also be provided with certificates after completion of chapters to keep them motivated while learning.
Teacher training will also be done through the collaboration, how will that happen? Will that be digitally conducted as well?
The teacher training programme will be conducted by the STEPapp team digitally through necessary documentation and web meetings. The training will provide the teachers’ with an in-depth insight into the dashboards. This will further help the teachers to get an understanding of the learning process as well as the performance of the child. Our app perfectly acts as a homework app for students to revise and study at home. With our dashboard, teachers will be able to track the students’ progress at ease and their convenience.
During the pandemic, how were you helping children access digital learning? Did STEPapp take up any initiative during the lockdown to facilitate online classes?
STEPapp has been constantly innovating to ensure that high-quality digital learning reaches every student in every corner of the country. In these unprecedented times, we have built a live classroom offering, called STEP Skool, which is also already out in the market. STEP Skool is a comprehensive online tutoring solution which provides live interactive digital classes. With well-planned course structure, real-time doubt solving, digital learning material and much more, STEP Skool is the ultimate solution enabling engagement and strengthening conceptual understanding for students. During the COVID-19 pandemic, we have provided STEPapp concepts at free of cost to various Government and Private school chains to ensure that learning never stopped but instead carried on more efficiently, for students.
