Monica Malhotra Kandhari, Senior Director, MBD Group talks about joining a consortium with technology companies to deliver content
What is MBD Group’s stake in the consortium with Microsoft, Acer and Tata Teleservices in providing educational tablets?
MBD Group has an equal stake in the consortium. In fact as the content provider, we form the backbone of this consortium.
Considering MBD has its own online learning programmes and published books, why did you join this consortium? Will the consortium’s content be any different from the content already available with MBD?
Delivery of quality education has significantly evolved from a couple of years ago. With the adoption of tablets and other smart devices, there is a big opportunity for us to reach the student directly. This consortium extends the competitive edge by providing quality content on a stable hardware platform and significant ease of access everywhere.
How will students benefit from this arrangement?
This consortium brings a huge enrichment to the learning process to the table such as easy access to quality content, immersive and collaborative learning, and most importantly, a personalized pace of learning and assessment for the student.
What is the current market share of e-learning programmes in Indian schools? How much is the consortium targeting?
E-learning is a growing market. However, there is a significant lack of adoption outside the urban centers. The consortium can reach more than 100 towns and cities in India any day.
How will the programme roll out and what will be the number of schools and students targeted initially?
This is an innovative product that we are offering to institutions that are willing to invest in their students. In the first year of launch we will limit ourselves to 100 schools where there is a high potential for transformative learning.
Please define the consortium’s USP.
The consortium has content for comprehensive learning and holistic assessment. It also has connected learning in and outside the classroom, educational tablet with Windows 8.1 and speedy connectivity for anytime, anywhere leaning.
Please define the USP of the content available from MBD.
MBD is known for providing quality educational content ever since its inception in 1956, we serve more than 40000+ school pan India with our 37 branch offices and are the only publisher to develop content in more than 12 regional languages spoken in India. Our content experts come from various top notch educational institutes. The digital content developed by MBD follows two pronged approach, it empowers the teachers with modern and effective teaching tools thus ensuring a higher success rate as well as enables students with easily accessible quality content.
How are you planning to offer the content in the tablet?
The content will be available in both, offline and online forms. In fact, one of the key USP of the offering is our ability to keep the content updated and current.
Which subjects will be covered in the content?
The content will cover all the subjects from class VI to XII.
What content is available withMBD Alchemie?
We have the ability to provide content for K-12, CBSE, ICSE as well as State Boards.
What will be the size of content per tablet?
Each class and course that is covered has a collection of more than 500 concept notes, interactive multiple content and over 1,000 assessment questionnaires.
How will a student use content?
MBD in collaboration with Microsoft is creating a Windows 8 app which will be able to provide a learning platform to the students. This platform will provide a personalized learning path to each student.
Will there be content available online?
To leverage the best of the offering, it would be ideal for the students to be connected on the Web. However the platform will also be sufficiently equipped to work in a stand-alone environment as well.
