Indians create 2 crore babies a year. All of them will end up in schools. But typically in grade 5, about 1 crore of these babies will drop out – to join the workforce. Even today 70% of our unskilled workforce is educated till grade 5. So the opportunity is in trying to give these grade 5 passouts, an opportunity to finish grade 8 and then grade 10. The theme is reminiscent of the movie Neel Battey Sanata. If the parents are ambitious enough for their children, but poor enough to require their income, will they be ready to get them through school?

Vikas feels that a mobile-app school may help. If ten years ago, someone had told you that your bank would be on the phone, you would have had a hearty laugh. If twenty years ago, you had read about a forecast that the internet would be free, with bandwidths of 10 MBPS, the chuckling would have been even greater. Yet these are realities of the near future. So would a working adult pay for his classroom? Should be interesting space to watch out. Already, NIOS will be ready to allow you to take a simple exam, if your age is right. So the question is simply preparing for the test. Vikas bets that with a few Khan academy type videos, we could have students getting ready soon.

His current thinking is to have downloadable teacher videos. Students would have a choice of teachers – she can preview lectures to decide whose classes she would like to attend. He believes that roll calls are important even in online classes. As are class teachers. For the purpose of legalities, the student can register in the closest government school as a student.

Here is the website – https://www.vidyalaya.org.in/