India is a land of multiple religions, cultures, ethnic groups, and languages, which come together to give our nation its status as a diverse country. We also boast of the largest education system in the world, catering to more than 260 million children. Social mobility makes the crowd in the classroom more and more diverse by each year; with such a diverse population, a crucial need for inclusive learning arises, which can successfully cater to the diverse learning needs of each student.

The need for inclusive classrooms emerges right from early childhood, which is the critical period of brain development. 

The ASER 2019 report shows 90% of children in the age group of 4-8 years as enrolled in some type of educational institution. Of these, a large proportion of 5-year-olds was unable to perform expected tasks with ease, with children from less advantaged homes affected disproportionately. At this stage of development, early learning experts recommend students should be developing cognitive, social, and emotional skills as well as the conceptual foundations needed for formal schooling. While the recent policy released by the Department of Education (the NEP 2020) does mention a need to “ensure inclusive and equitable quality education and promote lifelong learning opportunities for all by 2030”, to create a force of literate future-ready youth, we need to translate the power of words into robust initiatives that can create a truly inclusive learning environment.

WHAT DOES INCLUSIVE EDUCATION LOOK LIKE?

The basic premise of inclusive education is that all children receive equal access to education rather than be segregated based on their individual, educational, social, emotional, financial, linguistic, or physical impairments.

Inclusive classrooms aim to bring all students together regardless of their strengths or weaknesses in any area and seek to maximize each child’s potential.

TODAY, WHAT ARE THE NEEDS AND CHALLENGES FOR ACHIEVING THE GOAL OF INCLUSIVE EDUCATION?

While the government of India has made strides in adopting inclusive policies to provide an equitable education for all, we still have a way to go before we can cater to multiculturalism and diverse learning needs successfully. The current education system in India faces some challenges for achieving inclusive education:

• A lack of trained educators.
• Large class sizes with multi-age classrooms.
• Linguistic diversity posing a challenge for educators.
• Marginalisation based on socio-economic, cultural, and ethnic backgrounds.

HOW QUALITY EDUCATION CAN BE EFFECTIVELY AND EFFICIENTLY DELIVERED FOR DIVERSE GROUPS OF CHILDREN? 

The need of the hour is to have equal access to high-quality education right from the foundational ages, across geographical and socio-economic boundaries. For this vision to materialise, the Indian education system needs to adopt certain practices:

Educator Training, Empowerment, & Education: An educational system is only as good as its educators. If learning has to be streamlined, yet personalised and adapted to individual learning needs, educators, anganwadi workers, and balwadi workers across India need to be empowered to recognise and instruct as per the diverse learning needs. The NEP 2020 recognises the importance of training educators, by adding this clause to its document: “The awareness and knowledge of how to teach children with specific disabilities including learning disabilities will be an integral part of all teacher education programmes, along with gender sensitization and sensitization towards all underrepresented groups in order to reverse their underrepresentation.”

Adoption Of Adaptive Software: From the ground up, educational institutions need to equip themselves with adaptive software and technology, to help teachers create a holistic blended classroom that allows them to personalise learning as per each student’s learning level.

Changing The Mindset: While educators work on imparting education from the early stages itself, a collaborative effort needs to be undertaken to involve parents in the teaching-learning process. All stakeholders in the learning process-the parents, the educators, the policymakers-need to work in tandem to see successful learning outcomes in inclusive classrooms.

Need For Flexible, Adaptive Curriculum And Learning Tools: Every child learns differently, and a one-size-fits-all approach is detrimental to the acquisition of learning. Something that the NEP 2020 mentions too, an adaptive blended curriculum that works with each learner’s learning level, can serve to assimilate students of all kinds and ages into inclusive classrooms.

“Education is the single greatest tool for achieving social justice and equality. Inclusive and equitable education – while indeed an essential goal in its own right – is also critical to achieving an inclusive and equitable society in which every citizen has the opportunity to dream, thrive, and contribute to the nation. The education system must aim to benefit India’s children so that no child loses any opportunity to learn and excel because of circumstances of birth or background. This Policy reaffirms that bridging the social category gaps in access, participation, and learning outcomes in school education will continue to be one of the major goals of all education sector development programmes.” – NEP 2020

Policies provide a good model to promote inclusive education. Presently, we need to transfer learnings from the policy to the education sphere. In a diverse nation like ours, a multicultural perspective in the education sector starting from the foundational stages is what will help us create a truly unified country that boasts equality across the Indian educational landscape.

WHAT IS EXPERIENTIAL-BASED LEARNING & TEACHING ?

The term ‘experiential learning’ is used to talk about learning that is gained by experience or ‘learning by doing’. 

Fun Fact: The experiential learning concept has been around for a very long time, and was first explored in the education and learning context by educationists like Jean Piaget, among others. It was made most famous by American educational theorist Professor D.A. Kolb, who showed that mastering expertise is a continuous process of experience, reflection, conceptualisation, and experimentation. 

In India, experiential learning can be likened to the Gurukul education prevalent since ancient times across India. The students learnt by performing various tasks under the guidance of the Guru (teacher). Schools across India have already been practising some form of activity and experience-based learning, but the Department of Education has taken this one step further by necessitating experiential learning including learning that has elements of enquiry, gamified, activity-based, story-based, in Early Childhood Care and Education (ECCE), along with parallel teacher training programs to help educators understand the right way to impart such instruction.

Read more about the crucial impact of teacher training on the NEP 2020 here.

Some examples of experiential learning in the classroom:

• The Rainforest Learning Centre in the USA includes experiential education in almost all aspects of their curriculum. Their daycare and preschool-age learners are introduced to environmental clean-ups and animal adoptions, where they not only clean garbage and play with pets, but understand the results of their actions on the environment and community.
• Square Panda conducted pilot studies with our early learning system across schools in India. We provided young students with access to our early literacy platform, where they were taught to start reading the English language using stories and activities. In a period of a few weeks, with no extra intervention at all, we saw a marked improvement in the students’ learning outcomes, in skills like word reading and sentence reading.
• Mahindra International School (India), takes its primary school children on field trips as a part of their academic learning programme. Incorporated during school hours, these trips introduce young children to physical learning environments like zoos and farms.

WHEN DOES EXPERIENTIAL LEARNING HAPPEN ?

True experiential learning takes place when learners get immersed cognitively, emotionally, behaviourally, while reflecting and processing each experience, which then leads to a change in perspective, comprehension, thought, and behaviour. The next step is the application of the newly acquired learning to real-time events, turning these students into individualised learners who are well on the path to future success.

WHY EXPERIENTIAL METHODOLOGIES ARE THE FUTURE OF EDUCATION IN INDIA

The pedagogical approach that is experiential learning has the potential to revolutionise early learning, changing the Indian educational landscape as we know it, for the better.

For Children:

• Future-Ready Skills: An experiential base of learning provides children with real-life experience to match textbook teaching, which can be applied to problems for more practical use of knowledge.
• Personalisation: Traditional learning in India works on a one-size-fits-all approach at present, which affects learning outcomes. With a more experience-based approach, the learning modules can be specifically catered to each child’s individual requirements, enabling better skilling.
• Increased Engagement: Fun stories, activities, games, music, and other aspects of experiential learning all serve to keep young children engaged and exhibiting high levels of motivation as they immerse themselves in the experience.

For Educators:

• Improved Teaching Skills And Competencies: Educators are a very crucial part of ECCE, being responsible for young learners’ development and growth in this foundational period. Personalised, experience-based instructions will help educators professionally develop at a much faster rate while strengthening their subject matter knowledge.
• Knowledge Of Experiential And Activity-Based Teaching Learning Techniques: When educators are trained using experiential methods, their capacity for imparting knowledge using those same techniques increases exponentially, improving the learning outcomes, creating a more holistic development of the students.
• Mindset Changes: Explaining to educators about various styles of teaching is vastly different from allowing them to experience it. Hands-on experiential learning activities have a drastic effect on the mindset of educators, allowing them to relate to the theory, and put it into practice in the classroom.

WHY BUILDING ECCE PROGRAMS USING EXPERIENTIAL TEACHING-LEARNING METHODOLOGIES IS A BETTER IDEA

To ensure a higher quality of foundational learning in ECCE programs across India, there is a need to incorporate the NEP 2020’s vision of a comprehensive experiential teaching-learning methodology. Here’s why we think integrating experience-based instruction into the early classroom has a higher learning outcome:

• Blended Classrooms Can Be The New Norm: Instead of rote learning and traditional classrooms, a new blended form of teaching takes its place, where digital learning is combined with physical instruction. Experiential learning will be interwoven with online learning, creating a virtual safe space for real-life simulations, increasing young children’s engagement, and overall learning outcomes. 
• Gamified Learning: An educational approach to get students inspired and learning via game-based elements, gamification increases the enjoyment of learning, and thereby, retention. When backed by a research-based curriculum, gamified learning develops critical and strategic thinking, supporting students across different learning levels.
• Educator Empowerment: It’s not just students who benefit from a holistic program that teaches via experience. Educators can be trained and empowered to deliver high-quality content, develop strong subject knowledge, and polish their professional skills, using experiential teaching methodologies.
• Playing-&-Learning Activities: “The importance of play-based activities, especially for young learners, cannot be highlighted enough. This approach to learning sees children develop essential life skills like critical thinking, gross and fine motor skills, and much more”, remarks the curriculum head for Square Panda India, Ms. Neha Shah, when asked about the impact this particular experiential learning method has on early childhood education. Even the NEP 2020 itself documents its importance, by stating, “The learning in the Preparatory Class (a class each young learner will attend before the age of 5) shall be based primarily on play-based learning with a focus on developing cognitive, affective, and psychomotor abilities and early literacy and numeracy.” 

This application of theory and academic content to real-world experiences within the classroom and other surroundings allows young children to learn, explore, and respond to situations appropriately. ECCE benefits from such experiential programs by promoting increased aptitude and cognitive development in the early years. India is shedding some much-needed light onto this teaching-learning methodology, increasing adaptation of 21st-century skills and techniques for a better, more literate India. 

Square Panda’s foundational learning program and educator empowerment programs have a holistic approach to teaching and learning, via experiential and activity-based methodology. These research-based techniques use multisensory elements, storytelling, music, play-based activities and other experiential elements to achieve better learning outcomes and optimal results.

What is your take on experiential learning in the Indian classroom? How do you think it benefits ECCE? Comment below.

The continued growth in information processing, and the advent of technologies like Artificial Intelligence and Machine Learning in education, is a game-changer for education, and consequently, the educators. The people we entrust with our children’s education have a very important role to play in their futures and the future of the country as a whole; to accomplish this crucial task, they need to be empowered with thorough guidance and training, with complete assistance in developing 21st century-appropriate skills. To directly quote research studies conducted over the years, “Students succeed when intensive, comprehensive, and high-quality prevention and early intervention instruction is provided by well-trained and well-supported teachers”*.

At present, the traditional method of learning in India involves a blackboard and reading from the textbook, a method of rote learning that is outdated for the changing educational landscape. To enable the well-rounded development of children, educators (especially ECCE educators), not only have to function as high-quality content creators but also have to understand the neuroscience behind early learning and the ecosystem that comes into play when a young child begins to learn.

Unfortunately, the teaching profession in India is faced with a multitude of challenges:

• A basic level of proficiency: Currently, educators across India only have basic skills needed to impart education and train young minds to be future-ready. The onus at present is on developing high-quality educators who help mould a stronger generation of future citizens.
• One-teacher-fits-all: Students across different grade levels study together in one classroom or Anganwadi, with only one teacher explaining all the subjects. Here, subject matter expertise is a problem, along with the appropriateness of curriculum as per the individual learning needs for every child.
• Administrative duties: An already burgeoning workload is further burdened by a host of administrative tasks. For example, teachers are required to handle extracurricular activities, data collation to help with the creation of physical reports, and more, along with teaching their young charges.

• Availability: A less than optimal pupil-teacher ratio, existing training curriculum that requires an overhaul as per the changing needs, and more challenges, see many opting out of choosing teaching as a profession. NEP 2020 has allowed for multiple provisions and considerations in its approach to teacher education, but finding and retaining a high calibre of educators remains a challenge.
• Other problems: Those in the education profession are also bogged down by limited resources (hardware and funding), a vast geographical area with many remote places, a lack of support, and, due to COVID, a drastic and sudden shift of the traditional classroom towards a more blended approach, which sees educators struggle to embrace technology like never before.

The Department of Education, in its latest National Education policy, states, “In all stages, experiential learning will be adopted, including hands-on learning, arts-integrated and sports-integrated education, story-telling-based pedagogy, among others, as standard pedagogy within each subject, and with explorations of relations among different subjects. To close the gap in achievement of learning outcomes, classroom teaching learning methodologies transactions will shift, towards competency-based learning and education”. 

This policy reiterates adopting new-age skills into the existing teaching framework, adding important experiential methods including gamification, storytelling, art, music, and more. The new education sector as envisioned by the policy aims for holistic, all-round development of young learners by qualified and trained educators.

To see a substantial positive shift in the Indian education sector, particularly in ECCE, educators existing and new will have to be trained in the pedagogy of today’s changing world while also gaining an in-depth understanding of a child’s neurological development as learning is imparted. And, as the coronavirus pandemic has taught us, to adapt to the changing educational ecosystem, educators across India must develop a strong understanding of digital literacy. 

The Impact Of empowering the Educators On Indian Education:

• Impact On ECCE: Robust educator training and empowerment programs have a strong impact on early childhood education. A deep understanding of subject knowledge coupled with an awareness of the neuroscience behind early learning results in powerful skill development in the young learners,  building a strong foundation for lifelong learning, setting them on a path for success. For example, an English language teacher who knows their subject can easily explain topics ranging from phonological awareness to idioms and puns, without any loss of understanding on the part of their students.

• Developing New-Age Methodologies Of Teaching: The National Educational Policy 2020 describes a whole new way of teaching, including a host of 21st century skills like ‘experiential learning via gamification and apps’, ‘holistic learning’, and more. These new techniques will entice learners more, enabling an improved attitude towards education, which results in an improved and enhanced academic performance.
• Subject Matter Knowledge Improves: A stronger grasp of the subject in question will see educators being able to explain concepts and ideas better, increasing the comprehension by students.

• Improved Performance Of Students: Studies have correlated teacher training to stronger student test scores, adding that the main reason for the improved performance was because the teacher had a better grip on the subject matter.
• Contribution To Economic Prosperity: High calibre educators who are trained, professionally developed, and dedicated, form the backbone of society, transferring knowledge and culture to batch after batch of learners. Forming an essential part of the radical changes we wish to see in our nation, these educators contribute a lot to the economic prosperity of a country.

“The quality of teacher education, recruitment, deployment, service conditions, and empowerment of teachers is not where it should be, and consequently the quality and motivation of teachers does not reach the desired standards. The high respect for teachers and the high status of the teaching profession must be restored so as to inspire the best to enter the teaching profession. The motivation and empowerment of teachers is required to ensure the best possible future for our children and our nation.” -NEP, 2020

A well-trained educator can not only mould a child’s entire future from the early years itself, but they also enhance their talents, helping them thrive in tomorrow’s world of work.

Square Panda is working towards the empowerment of educators via robust and innovative empowerment programs. 

*Reference: (c.f. Al Otailba, Connor, Foorman, Schatschneider, Greulich, Sidler, 2009; Al Otaiba & Torgesen, 2007; Rashotte, MacPhee, Torgeson, 2001; Shaywitz & Shaywitz, 2006, Torgesen, 2007; Vaughn & Wanzek, 2014; Vellutino & Fletcher, 2007.).

The fundamental ability of being able to read and perform basic operations with numbers is an essential requirement that serves as the cornerstone of all future learning. This acquisition happens when the young learner is between 3-7 years of age, a period known to be critical to brain development. The skills developed in early childhood will create a base for the enhancement of greater cognitive development, socio-emotional skills, reasoning, and more.

Around 260 million children are studying in more than 1.5 million schools across India at present. From these, over 70% of children in Class 3 do not have basic reading and arithmetic skills. Data shows that each year, an estimated 6 million children complete 8 years of compulsory schooling in India with alarmingly low learning levels. Such worrying trends in the formative years of schooling, when the cognitive skill development is the highest, can greatly destabilise a nation.

Without the basic skills of foundational literacy and numeracy, the benefits of all future learning and future success are lost. To truly become a self-reliant nation, India needs to turn the spotlight towards strengthening the existing ECCE programs to highlight foundational learning from the teacher training as well as the curriculum perspective.

Foundational skill development includes young learners being able to:

An investment in quality ECCE to boost foundational learning improves the attainment of the above ‘gateway’ skills, which pave the way for bigger long-term benefits like stronger future learning prospects and employability. Providing foundational skill development across the grassroots levels is an effective equaliser, allowing for inclusivity in early education, leading to better economic gains for the country as a whole aside from improving the learning outcomes of individual children. 

The second-most populous country in the world, India has a high rate of unemployment, a decline which began even before the pandemic hit. A clear long-term growth plan with strong benefits across sectors needs active empowerment of the upcoming Indian youth of tomorrow, right from the foundational stages. The new and improved workforce will find it easier to use new technologies and software, think creatively, adjust to the changing employment landscape, and generally be more accomplished as workers. This well-equipped generation, will, in turn, perform better. Ultimately, the GDP of our nation will reap the benefits of a good early education system. The guiding hands of our country’s economic development, our youth, need to be empowered so they can explore all available opportunities. We can take advantage of the shortage in manpower faced by countries around the world, and use our advantaged and educated youth to fill that gap.

The NEP 2020 is taking steps in this direction, guiding ECCE programs and development towards the goal of a more literate India. 

Foundational literacy and numeracy have been accorded a high priority by the NEP 2020, with the policy stating ‘Strong investment in ECCE has the potential to give all young children such access, enabling them to participate and flourish in the educational system throughout their lives. Universal provisioning of quality early childhood development, care, and education must thus be achieved as soon as possible, and no later than 2030, to ensure that all students entering Grade 1 are school ready’.
Watch India Prime Minister Mr. Narendra Modi speak about the Indian government’s push towards empowering our nation by increasing initiatives towards early childhood education, below:

Effective implementation of the policy demands wide-scale initiatives, especially training and support for teachers, to help them impart high-quality foundational literacy and numeracy to their charges. These programs also need support from innovative and holistic academic programs for children, right from the foundational stages itself, in order to see long-term benefits. The role of each stakeholder-including institutions, educators, Anganwadis, and even households-needs to be leveraged to develop an integrated and holistic approach to primary education. 

Square Panda is focused on impacting learning and raising a generation of independent confident learners, with our innovative and impactful foundational learning and teacher training programs.

Come back next week for an in-depth discussion about teacher training, and how it affects the implementation of the above mentioned initiatives.

In recent years, a new teaching and learning technique has swept the educational landscape of India, making inroads into the previously predominantly traditional sector. Adaptive Learning, or Adaptive Teaching, as it is called, provides personalised learning via data driven systems, adjusting the path and pace of learning to suit each learner’s needs. Adaptive learning can be divided into two categories, adaptive instruction and adaptive assessment. This technology makes learning more personal, adjusting to a student’s unique needs, offering customised course delivery with technology-assisted insights and analytics.

How Does It Work?

How Does It Help?

Did You Know? Because it is not only transforming the way students learn but how instructors teach, adaptive learning is also known by another name – adaptive teaching. Teachers’ skills are developed via technology to drive learner pathways and re-define learning outcomes. See the benefits…

To Students: 

– An adaptive technology presents students with the appropriate content and learning materials at the right time, increasing engagement.

– Because they are learning at a pace suitable for them, each child is more comfortable while learning, increasing the overall learning outcomes.- The dynamic feedback that allows teachers to cater their teaching style as per the need, and the digital rewards with positive feedback that are offered by the adaptive learning technology, serve to instill confidence in children, particularly struggling students.

To Teachers:

– Adaptive learning arms teachers with deeper insights into areas of struggle for students, while teaching them new pedagogy that aligns with their teaching styles.

– Allows instructors to engage more with students, by reducing the sheer amount of administrative tasks and increasing active learning experiences.

-In pre-primary & primary schools, teachers  often teach students of more than one grade level and different learning levels, in the same classroom. These ‘multi-age’ and ‘multi-level’ classrooms present a unique challenge; how to recognise specific students’ learning needs and then address them, while managing the class simultaneously. Adaptive technology can be used as a tool to teach such ‘multi-age’ and ‘multi-level’ classrooms.

– The real-time feedback adaptive learning provides helps teachers incrementally calibrate their own instructions to meet individual learners’ needs, gradually aligning with the bigger framework of solving foundational learning. This personalised guidance for teachers and educators will help them achieve their goals of a better, more literate India, as envisioned in the new Indian education policy.

To The Government: 

– India has one of the world’s largest education systems ever seen, with more than 1.5 million schools providing education to around 260 million students. Adaptive learning can be changed in size or scale to meet the evolving needs of the entire educational landscape.

– Adaptive software makes assessments possible on both the micro and the macro levels. Real-time dynamic feedback that allows for actionable plans and a mastery-based approach rather than a traditional one-size-fits-all learning model creates a robust education system that can stand up to any global curriculum.

An example of adaptive logic, using Square Panda:
As a child plays and learns on Square Panda’s early literacy platform, activity data is generated. Our adaptive engine picks up this data and decides what content the child should have access to next. Whichever educational game or program the child is learning with reflects this suggestion, only showing content as per the individual child’s learning level. Special ‘cooldown’ periods are built into Square Panda’s platform, ensuring adequate repetition so that children practice without getting bored. Square Panda’s adaptive engine is constantly changing to add more skill masteries, more types of assessments and filters across the games, to tailor learning to specific learner profiles.

Adaptive learning and technology change the way learning happens, and that is a powerful thing. The transformation in the early learning system in India will happen when we embrace adaptive learning, using it as an intrinsic part of early education to enrich the teaching-learning experience.

Stay tuned for more insightful articles that delve into foundational literacy, and other hot button topics from the Indian early education sector.

The 2011 Census states that anyone over the age of 11 who can read and write is ‘literate’. Literacy has been marked as a strong factor in employment, with a study by Bynner, J. and Parsons, S. in 2001, citing, ‘both literacy and numeracy skills have been shown to be crucial in gaining employment and retaining it (…)’. Literacy is the backbone of developing nations like India, and foundational literacy is its base.

Research attributes 80% of brain development to the early childhood period. This fertile period is also when the precursors to language learning are developed. These foundations later become predictors of a child’s reading ability in later grades. Unfortunately, many children (in India and worldwide) are consistently unable to read at their grade level. That is a problem because these children then fall further and further behind with every grade i.e. it becomes tremendously difficult for them to catch up. Not being able to read has grave implications ranging from not getting into college to unemployment.

Why Square Panda Focuses On Developing Foundational Literacy Skills:

The reading skill is crucial to perform well in academics, as well as in regular life. An early reading ability not only influences a future reading habit but also paves the way for future success and quality of life.

The current educational policy has refrained from highlighting any particular mode of instruction as the ‘primary’ mode, choosing instead to leave the decision up to the respective administrations. What is a game-changer for the Indian education system is the addition of ECCE into the new policy. Where once early childhood education was not looked upon as formal education, it is now being given a rightful place in the educational landscape of India. Early education is also at the core of Square Panda’s multisensory platform, with a focus on early literacy.

Square Panda’s mission is to empower all children to reach their full potential by launching their educational journey with the power of literacy and languages and we support that journey through our unique, personalised learning system.

Square Panda wants to drive development and education in India to be on par with our global counterparts, using a platform that enables foundational English language learning, from the grassroots level itself, starting as deep inside the educational system as Anganwadis and Balwadis. With a strong educational team to back the constantly evolving programs developed by Square Panda, we are turning the focus towards training Anganwadi workers to handle early education, work with our systems, and skill themselves, to enable a better learning environment for children at the very heart of India.

The disparity of educational resources across India sees an imbalance in the distribution of basic amenities like teachers, educational materials, and even study books. The gap further widens, due to factors like high pupil to teacher ratios, a lack of appropriate curriculum, infrastructure shortages, poor quality of teaching staff, and declining monetary resources. While there is a facility for free education, especially in the younger years, enforcing this is difficult. Educational technology reaches the places these resources cannot, making edtech companies like ours the perfect collaborators to the government, to enhance foundational literacy across the educational landscape in India. 

“In a country like India, where we find children of different learning levels and capabilities, edtech is a valuable resource to cater to different needs, allowing for a greater personalising and adaptiveness,” opines Mr. Jhalani.

Square Panda’s self-guided adaptive platform allows for an enhanced and holistic early learning experience; the teachers and educators can operate our system with a minimal amount of technical knowledge.

As a future global superpower, we want to see India succeed in its goal to achieve 100% literacy. Square Panda provides an all-round solution to the early literacy problems plaguing the Indian education sector at present, with a blended offering combining digital tools and multisensory physical learning materials.

“The goals Square Panda has is to make education and literacy affordable and reachable to the masses across the world, may it be in China, may it be in India. We want to make sure that every child gets an opportunity to be literate, learn the language of English—which is a primary language across the world—and find better jobs as they grow up.” – Mr. Ashish Jhalani.

Square Panda believes in the need for a robust early education system, along with efficient teacher training programs to enhance quality of education across India, and the globe.

Technology is growing by leaps and bounds, becoming more commonplace in our daily lives as the years go by. In fact, Artificial Intelligence has the potential to add $957 billion, or 15% of current gross value added, to India’s economy by 2035, according to an estimate in a study by a tech giant.

One sector benefiting from technology-the education sector-is yet to see positive results in a country like India. Globally, private investment in educational technology, broadly defined as the use of computers or other technology to enhance teaching, grew 32% annually from 2011 through 2015, rising to $4.5 billion globally.

We’re seeing terms like Artificial Intelligence (or AI) and Machine Learning (or ML) being used very frequently in conjunction with education. We’re decoding these terms, and what changes they can bring to the Indian education landscape, in this article:

What Is ‘Artificial Intelligence (AI)’: It’s also called ‘Machine Intelligence’, and describes the artificial simulation of human intelligence, by machines. Examples of AI include Apple’s SIRI, self-driving cars, Presentation Translator for PowerPoint (it creates real-time subtitles for what the teacher is saying), and more.

What Is ‘Machine Learning (ML)’: A branch of Artificial Intelligence (AI), ML helps systems and software analyze and interpret patterns, by experience and exposure to repeated tasks. ML gets computers to perform tasks without being explicitly programmed for them. Apart from Siri, Alexa, and all the others, ML is used in GPS navigation services, social media platforms (Facebook can recognize a photo of your friend the instant you upload it), the spam filter in your email inbox, and even language learning apps like Square Panda and Duolingo, who use the games and exercises played on their system to calibrate and cater learning as per each individual learner’s level of learning.

“India will have the highest population of young people in the world over the next decade, and our ability to provide high-quality educational opportunities to them will determine the future of our country.” – (NEP, 2020)

We think the new policy by the Ministry of Education perfectly sums up our nation’s future requirements, to create a globally competitive, employable workforce of citizens. For this reason, AI and ML will need to be an intrinsic part of education, right from the early years.

Here’s what we think the future of education will look like, with AI and ML:

Smart Content Will Be Everywhere: Smart learning and smart content include any type of learning that is studied online, including video lessons and recorded classes. Textbooks as we know it will change, with parts or even whole chapters being converted into digital lessons. These new syllabuses will help children of all ages and academic levels, increasing their engagement to a greater extent.

Learning Will Get More Personalized: What we will see as the education landscape changes, is more adaptive learning methods adopted by schools and states as a whole. AI and ML have the unique ability to ‘read’ a child’s data in real-time, and adjust the curriculum to cater to that learner’s particular learning needs. Children coming in the invisible ‘middle strata’ (those who don’t attract attention by being at the top OR the bottom), will not fall through the cracks. Educators will see the benefits of adaptive curriculum, with having to put in extra efforts, which thereby frees up their time for other tasks. Not just learning, but each child’s response and feedback to learning will be personalized too, allowing parents and educators to understand individual children’s performance in detail. Multi-level classrooms, with children of different grades packed into one class with just one teacher, like those seen in rural areas, can make the best use of this personalized approach to learning.

Technology To Support Teachers And Educators: There are multiple instances of AI and ML being used in classrooms across the globe, with varying degrees of success. Not only does the technology get more affordable as time goes by, but it even allows teachers more time to work on lessons and plans, by taking care of all mundane administrative tasks like note making, collating data, etc. that is, for now, a task most Indian teachers have to do manually.
For instance, our early education platform at Square Panda has a ‘Portal’, to help monitor learning in schools and at home, in real-time. Read all about it, here.
All the evidence points towards AI and ML being a strong source of support and aid to educators, and are not to be taken as replacements. After all, education wouldn’t be the same without a ‘human touch’.

An Unbiased Assessment And Tracking System: On account of providing real-time traceability and trackability, AI and ML systems have started to flourish in the edTech segment. Grading and checking will soon be done via a programmed system, removing the possibility of human error and bias with it. Negative feedback will be done away with, increasing a child’s enjoyment of learning, without fear of repercussions.

Increased Reach: India has a vast geography, with multiple remote, hard-to-reach areas; these make equal learning opportunities harder for children in such areas. Technology enables children all over India, especially in the remote areas, to access quality education right from the early years. To make up for the intermittent internet connectivity in such areas, the tech can even be customized to work offline for long periods of time. AI can enable easier access to offline content, and even provide automated tutoring and mentoring programs for different learning styles. The near future could see a greater degree of interlinking and connection between the schools and students, allowing students to take courses and classes that were otherwise out of reach for them. 

Skilling: The performance matrix in AI algorithms helps the machine determine what the child is likely to excel in, while enhancing skills that are applicable in the real world. AI and ML can also help train teachers, skilling them to solve quality issues in the education sector. The enhanced skill set children develop can help them compete on a global level as well.

The education sector in India has predominantly been ruled by human-to-human interaction. With the recent pandemic, this rule is slowly changing, and moving towards a slightly more digital learning landscape. Artificial Intelligence and Machine Intelligence advances are here to stay; educators need to plan for involving digital methods alongside traditional learning, gradually preparing the next generation to leverage the global AI revolution to our country’s advantage.

Interested in adding AI and ML to your teaching? Check out our Square Panda early literacy platform, which uses an adaptive engine to develop early English literacy in young children aged 2-8. As a child plays with our educational games, our software runs in the background, analysing patterns of play, frequency of words played, challenges faced, to suggest letters/words that the child should be focussing on next, inside the games themselves. This data also reflects in our ‘Portal’, allowing educators and parents the ability to monitor progress in real-time.

Stay tuned for our next post, on how we intend to spread early literacy even at the heart of India, and later, another upcoming post where we’ll be talking about how Square Panda is building a safe and kid-friendly ecosystem inside our platform, along with tips to keep every young learner safe while online.

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Mahatma Gandhi (full name, Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi), who is also known as the Father of the Nation, was born 151 years ago today, October 2nd, in 1869. 

His contribution to India’s freedom struggle is well-known, but did you know he was equally invested in education in India? 

Mahatma Gandhi On Education In India

Seeing more merit in an education system that was free from British influence, Mahatma Gandhi proposed that schools should begin generating their own income via saleable handicrafts, to become more financially stable. He also believed teachers should have freedom in curricula matters, so they could impart originality to students, rather than sticking to a set format and guidelines. He counted the great Russian writer, Leo Tolstoy, as one of his major influences.

Did You Know? 

Mahatma Gandhi was an avid reader, with a collection amassing more than 11,000 books (a figure he mentions during his interview conducted on July 27, 1933). This collection was later housed at Sabarmati Ashram, as Mahatma Gandhi had relinquished all claim over his books, allowing them to become ashram property.

In 1933, this entire collection was then donated to the municipal library of Ahmedabad, a gesture he made to commiserate with all those satyagrahis whose properties were confiscated by the British Government, as punishment for participating in the salt satyagraha under the leadership of Gandhi.

Gandhi’s eclectic book collection consisted of works from authors like Charles Darwin (Descent of Man), William Shakespeare and Jonathan Swift, to Assyrian satirist Lucian of Samosata (Trips to the Moon), to mathematician James Jeans (Mysterious Universe). Poetry in English, Hindi, and Gujarati also had a space on his bookshelf, including Goethe’s Faust and The Rubaiyat of Omar Khayyam. His collection also lists multiple translations in English, Hindi, and his native tongue, Gujarati, of the Bible, Quran, Mahabharata, and Ramayana. Apart from this, Mahatma Gandhi also devoured books that taught him about Zoroastrianism, Sikhism, Buddhism, and Vedanta, among others.

Not only was reading books a way to enrich his mind and philosophies, he also read to become more independent and self-reliant; he read books on childbirth and obstetrics in order to aid his wife Kasturba, when she was to deliver their son Devdas! Other similar books in the quest to prepare himself for varied situations include a guide titled ‘How to Launder‘ and a book called ‘Finger Impressions‘ written by a police officer.

His lifelong reading habit, his attitude of self-reflection, and his writing (he authored many famous books during his lifetime), is what Mahatma Gandhi credits as helping him along the path of self-growth. 

To Commemorate This Great Thinker’s Birthday, We’ll Leave You With Some Of His Quotes On Education:

What have these thoughts by Mahatma Gandhi taught you? Comment below.

Children are not born knowing how to read; in fact, it is a learned skill. Yet, it is one of the foundations on which other academic learning is based. The benefits of reading at each stage in a child’s life are well documented. So, how do you help your children along the path to reading readiness? We have some innovative and easy activity suggestions to enhance foundational English literacy and reading readiness in your children:

FOR CHILDREN JUST BEGINNING TO LEARN THEIR LETTERS

‘The Bird Nest’ – Identify The Short Vowel Sound:

*Short vowel sounds are vowels (in words) that have a short sound, usually different from the way the actual vowel is pronounced. For example, words like ‘ten’, ‘cat’, ‘yet’, all have vowels with short sounds, that don’t sound like the vowel itself.

In multiple small corners of your home, create ‘bird nests’, using lots of blankets, pillows, and even colourful scarves. Assign a letter to each ‘nest’ (for children who have already learnt their letters, you can even write the letter on a paper and place it near the designated ‘nest’). Call out a letter sound. Your child has to correctly identify the letter, and step into the corresponding ‘nest’.

NOTE: You can even simply designate small corners of your home as ‘nests’, without the physical materials, if needed.

FOR CHILDREN WHO ARE LEARNING THEIR LETTERS, AND THOSE WHO CAN READ SMALL WORDS TOO

Pumpkin Bowl – Play And Learn Word Families:

Use orange coloured paper or paint on two large bowls, so they resemble pumpkins. No orange colour OR paper? No problem! Simply use sticky notes to represent the colour you want.

For Beginner Readers: Cut out pictorial representations of common CVC words like ‘MAT’, ‘CAT’, ‘MAN’, ‘PAN’, and ask your child to sort the common sounding words into the same bowl. So, the images of ‘CAT’ and ‘MAT’ go into one bowl, and ‘MAN’ and ‘PAN’ go into the other. Once they have mastered this, you can further boost their phonological awareness by asking them to sort images based on the initial sounds of words, like ‘TAP’ and ‘SAP’.

For Slightly Advanced Readers: Write a different word family (like -AT, -OG) on the side of each bowl. Write various words belonging to these word families (like HAT-FAT, or DOG-FOG) on paper (in keeping with the pumpkin theme, these can also be orange coloured). Have your kids read out the words, figure out which word family the words belong to, and put the paper in the correct bowl.

FOR CHILDREN WHO CAN READ SMALL WORDS

Consonant-Vowel-Consonant (CVC) Word Box:

Turn any old box, like a delivery box, into a word box. Add in tactile (something you can touch and hold) letter shapes, like the Smart Letters from our Square Panda early learning system (or you can create your own letters too, using craft material). Add a few commonly used letters like ‘A’, ‘M’, ‘N’, and ‘P’ into the box. Keeping these letters in mind, say a CVC word out loud (like ‘NAP’), and ask your child to spell it using the letters from inside the word box. At a higher level, they can even be asked to create their own CVC words, or rhyming words, using any letters from the word box.

Loved these early reading activities? Tell us how much in the comments below.
Spread the learning; share this article with other friends and parents who would love to try out these activities.

Multiple articles and research show just how important acquisition of reading skills is, particularly for very young learners. Development of these skills turns emerging readers into independent and fluent readers for life, adding to their global competency, future job prospects, and overall quality of life. Every parent/teacher chooses to introduce the reading habit to the child/student in their life. What happens, though, if an otherwise enthusiastic child suddenly shows a definite reluctance to read? How do you entice young children to make an effort to pick up a book?

Take help from the below tried-and-tested steps, to help you inculcate a reading habit in your little learners:

#1: Create The Perfect Reading Spot.

Finding the perfect book for emerging readers will take experimentation and time, but as adults, you can ensure they are prepared for this experience by setting aside a dedicated reading space to call their own, inside homes and classrooms. Add comfortable pillows, blankets, and bright lighting. Fit in a desk full of books at a height they can easily reach, and voilà, you have a junior reader’s paradise!

#2: Teach By Example.

Your kids look to the closest adults to teach them things, which, more often than not, is you. So pick up a book, and show your kids how much fun reading can be. When they see you reading, it will automatically encourage them to try it themselves.

#3: Take Reading To The Next Level.

Forcing your kids to read can make them view the reading habit, which is already hard enough to acquire, as a major chore. Use various tricks and activities to show them that the reading habit is more than just reading, it is exploring new worlds, meeting new characters, and learning new things.
Introduce a new story using life-like images and sound effects (you can get these on the internet; just check the terms of usage).
Encourage more interaction by reading through live-action ‘stage shows’ with your kids acting out their favourite part of a book.
Change up their reading routine slightly; make them read the story aloud to you. Their pronunciation gets a huge boost, along with their confidence level.
Host storytelling competitions amongst the children; the winner gets an extra half hour of playtime with Square Panda, or gets a snack of their choice.

#4: Get A Daily Dose Of Reading In With Square Panda.

Even the most resistant learners will never say no to Square Panda play-learn time! With educational games and an early reading app that is perfect for kids as young as 2 till the age of 8, combined with adaptive technology that personalises according to an individual child’s learning level, you could not ask for more! Additionally, our educational screen time is backed by a curriculum that is completely research-based.

#5: Ease Up On The Pressure.

Children shouldn’t like reading just because the adults in their life do, nor do they have to read the same books you favour. In fact, the more choice they feel they have in choosing how, when, and which books to read, the more likely they are to turn into fluent and confident readers for life.  Let them discover their own likes and dislikes. Children will be more inclined to become lifelong readers if they are not forced into it. Give them as many different reading options as you can, like, different genres of books, special reading apps, kid-friendly podcasts, and more.

#Bonus Point: Discuss What You’ve Read.

Take a minute to chat about what you just read, whether it was the label on a toy box, or a magazine cover, or even a picture book. Have an open conversation with much structure, so it doesn’t resemble a lesson in any way. Open-ended questions like ‘Why do you think Pan sat on the mat?’ can encourage children to reason with you, asking them to recall a certain page can help their memory. This task has the added benefit of helping develop vocabulary skills, further leading down the path to reading success.

Remember that each child learns to read differently. Let them set their own pace. Provide all the support you can so your child/student feels less self-conscious about coming to you for help.

Want more educational tips and articles just like this? Watch this space for more…
Until then, grab a SquareBox (our very own multisensory educational kit for kindergarten), which not only has the Square Panda phonics early literacy playset, it also boasts loads of additional fun learning materials to make schooling at home a breeze during the lockdown.



Written by Sanjana Shukla (Content Writer, Square Panda India)