Toppr is one of India’s leading e-Learning platform, which provides many features such as video lectures, goals, bookmarks, doubts on chats, test series, previous papers, leaderboard, challenges, and many others, to enable students prepare for their respective examinations.

In 2017, over 1 crore students appeared for grade 12 exams. These students are expected to grow up to be successful engineers, doctors, lawyers, or chartered accountants. In fact, right from school, they have faced constant pressure to excel in their exams and secure a seat in Ivy League colleges. However, a very small number of these students have had access to a quality education, well trained and knowledgeable teachers, modern infrastructure, and up to date reference material.

As a result, a lot of these students grow up with a weak knowledge of their basics, difficulty to understand advanced concepts, and an inability to apply what they have learnt. Due to a bursting population and stretched resources, the education system in India is flawed.

What is the problem with the Indian Education System?
There are three major problems that must be addressed immediately:
1. A big problem is a one-size-fits-all approach. When you put a large number of students in a classroom, teachers cannot attend each student individually. Instead of addressing the fact that every child learns at a different pace and using a different teaching methodology, they use a blanket approach that they hope covers most of the class.
2. The second is a tutor’s availability to solve student doubts and positively help a student’s learning curve.
3. The third is the concentration of quality education to certain areas, and usually at expensive institutions.

If educators set out to solve these problems through the traditional way, they would need a very large scale of highly trained professors, high-end infrastructure, and availability of latest resources like reference books. In a geographically and economically diverse country like India, this is close to impossible to achieve.

How can Technology Help?
However, when the power of

technology is harnessed, the scenario completely changes. An edtech app can address all of these concerns. Not only can quality education be made easily accessible to any student with an internet connection, but it can be personalized to the learning needs of every student.

Abolishing the One-Size-Fits-All Approach
We believe that every student learns differently. They learn at a different pace and in a different style. Using Machine Learning and Big Data, we can study student behaviour. Technology understands the unique learning needs of every student on the ed-tech app. With this understanding, it alters that student’s learning experience to help boost the entire learning process.

While high-quality resources are only restricted to a few areas in the country, edtech can democratize education

For example, consider that two students are given the same set of questions. One student not only answers them correctly but answers them in a very short span of time. The other makes mistakes and spends a long duration on each question. It’s obvious that both of these students are at different academic levels. Giving them the same level of questions will do more harm than good - one will get bored and the other, demotivated.

Advanced technology understands this. It will challenge the first student more and will go back to the basics with the second student. It will slowly raise the bar for both students, helping them grow at their own pace.

Unsolved Doubts
Most traditional classrooms are a one-way street. Teachers deliver a lecture and barely have any time to solve the doubts of all students. These doubts either go unsolved or pile up until teachers hold doubt solving sessions. This has a large impact on any student’s learning curve, often pushing them towards rote learning topics that they don’t understand.

Using advanced technology, these doubts can be solved via a chat app. All they have to do is click a picture of their doubt and upload it to the app. Using artificial intelligence and natural language processing, the app will try to find a solution for either the same question or a similar one. It will show this solution to the student. If the bot cannot find a solution it will connect the student with our expert who will solve the doubt in real time. Using advanced technology and a team of freelance experts, millions of doubts can be solved in a short span of time. 98 percent of them can be solved in less than 90 seconds, making Doubts on Chat instrumental to a student’s learning curve.

Geographic Availability
While high-quality resources are only restricted to a few areas in the country, edtech can democratize education. Today, any student with a smart device and an internet connection can access high-quality videos, personalized tests, and instant doubt solving through the tap of a button. They do not need to travel to another city or spend a large amount of money for a seat in a coaching class. They can study from the comfort of their homes. Moreover, all of this can be done at a far lesser cost than traditional after-school learning solutions.

This is how advanced technology can be used to take a few steps towards improving the education system, and can aim at producing smarter, sharper, and more employable professionals in the near future.