With its online learning platform designed for rural areas with no internet connectivity, the company is improving learning outcomes with new-age interventions
RCM Reddy, a former IAS officer and CEO of Schoolnet
Image: Madhu Kapparath
Gungun Kumari lives in one of the poorest neighbourhoods in Jharkhand’s Bokaro district. Her parents own a small shop selling daily rations. One would assume the free state school she goes to nearby is ridden with absent teachers, a lack of incentives and low standards. Instead, Rajendra High School stands apart.
A tall, rusted gate gives way to an expansive grassy turf around which the school’s classrooms are built. Inside one classroom, Sanjay Kumar is teaching his students about concave and convex mirrors. A rectangular device sits atop his table. Think of it as a mini computer with content rolled into it. The computer doubles up as a projector with speakers, beaming content on to the classroom’s pale white wall, converting it into smart wall. Kumar pulls out a pen from his kurta pocket, taps on a drawing tool on the projection and sketches out the mechanism he is trying to explain to his pupils. He talks animatedly, asks his pupils questions, and challenges them with follow-up questions when they answer. His enthusiasm for teaching—and the pride he takes in it—is as refreshing as the green turf outside, visible through the classroom windows.
“Typically, in a classroom, what do you have is a separate laptop, separate projector and separate speakers. Here everything is embedded into one small box. You don’t even need the internet to operate it. An electricity connection is all you need, and the class becomes a smart class,” he later tells us.
“We all wait for our turn to learn using this device,” beams Kumari, 15. The school has one such device which it rotates between different grades. Designed for rural areas with little or no internet connectivity, this all-in-one 4kg plug-and-play device is called KYAN, where K stands for knowledge, and Yan refers to vehicle in Sanskrit. Back in the mid-1990s, Schoolnet India, which was then part of the IL&FS group, approached IIT-Bombay to develop such a device that could be used to up the quality of education in government schools. Since then, KYAN has gone through many iterations. As has Schoolnet.
When IL&FS went bankrupt in 2018, it sold Schoolnet, which largely catered to government schools, to Delhi-based Falafal Technologies Pvt. Ltd. Under its new owner, Schoolnet continued its work of improving educational outcomes in India’s most impoverished schools. Today, over 40,000 government and affordable private schools use K-Yan; 15 million students and one million teachers like Kumar have been impacted.