Government of Karnataka partners with Khan Academy

Government of Karnataka has redesigned ICT programme in school education and is implementing Technology Assisted Learning Programme (TALP) from 2016-17 with an objective to complement normal classroom teaching with ICT enabled Teaching and Learning in all subjects as well as to ensure digital literacy for all Secondary School students for enhancing learning achievement.  TALP is an integration of the existing technology assisted programmes of the department such as EDUSAT, Computer based learning under SSA, Tele-Education and ICT- 3.

Use of digital contents in the form of e-content is promoted under TALP to engage the interest of students and enhance their understanding.  The Department has mapped the available digital resources in Mathematics and Science subjects to the state curriculum under various programmes such as Karnataka Open Educational Resources, EDUSAT, Radio, Tele-Education, Amrita O’Labs, Agasthya Foundation Science Experiments and many more.

The mapping of resources to other subjects has been initiated.  These resources have been pre-loaded to the laptops which are being supplied to schools.  A repository of all such e-contents will be made available on the servers located at State Data Centre and schools will be connect to SDC for updates.

Government of Karnataka has partnered with Khan Academy to make available educational content including videos, exercises, articles and teacher tools, in Kannada.

Mr.HN Gopalakrishna, Director, Department of State Educational Research and Training, Government of Karnataka and Mr. Sandeep Bapna, MD, Khan Academy India, signed the Partnership Agreement at a special event organised today for the signing in Bengaluru.

Under the partnership, Department of State Education Research & Training (DSERT, Karnataka) will create in Kannada educational content that includes 5,500+ videos and 20,000+ exercises in Math and Science, as well as dashboards, which already help millions of students and teachers around the world.  These resources would be mapped to the state curriculum. The effort could expand to include more subjects in the future.

Khan Academy will provide the state with training, know-how and support. As a first step in this regard, Khan Academy will assist the state government to run a talent search programme to identify experts for content localisation. In addition, a series of trainings and workshops will be conducted for the content team for translation, curriculum mapping, quality control and other technological requirements.

Speaking on the occasion, Mr. Tanveer Sait, Minister for Primary and Secondary Education, Government of Karnataka, said, “the state government is committed to providing universal, equitable, open and free access to ICT and ICT enabled tools and resources to all students and teachers to enable quality education in schools.  There is an urgent need to digitize and localize available educational audio and video resources, which exist in different languages, media standards and formats. Khan Academy subject content available in English will be translated and localized to Kannada language.  KA content maps to our pre-test and hence it will be useful to level out students in the beginning of the academic year as part of the bridge course.  The use of content will also bridge learning gaps that may have been accumulated by student.  The use of content is also helpful to teachers who may have gaps in their understanding due to revision of curriculum/syllabus and help to build their competency.”

The unique partnership brings together Khan Academy’s content creation expertise and the state personnel’s teaching-proficiency in Kannada. This combination of strengths is expected to help create comprehensive resources in an accelerated manner.

The content, once created, will be hosted on the state’s data center/portal, on Khan Academy’s Kannada platform and on mobile apps. As Khan Academy is an open education resource, all the content that would be created through this exercise will be available to anyone for free. The content and tools could be used by any student and teacher in and out of school, and also by any other individuals and organizations as a resource for their work in the state.

Also speaking on the occasion, Mr. Sandeep Bapna, Managing Director, Khan Academy India, said, “We are happy to work together with the Government of Karnataka on this unique partnership. Karnataka has made significant progress in bringing technology in education through its Technology Assisted Learning Program (TALP). Teachers will be able to use the content, personalised dashboard, analytics, and coach tools in Kannada to provide personalised learning to their students as per their individual needs. This initiative is a key step towards enabling Khan Academy’s vision of providing a free, world-class education, for anyone, anywhere.”