Covid helps reinvent roles for Avanti Learning Centres, discover true path

The pandemic experience has been transformational for Avanti. Avanti Fellows, the not-for-profit, now runs programmes in over 300 government schools

To say that the pandemic has been transformational for humankind sounds like an understatement but for many organisations and businesses, it has acted as a pivot to discover their true selves. This is what has happened with Avanti Learning Centres and its founders.

Not only has their lens changed post the crisis, so has their own path, trajectory and inclinations. It would  be quite accurate to say that Avanti as an organisation is a  “new animal” post COVID.

Back in 2011, IIT-Mumbai and Harvard alum Akshay Saxena and his partner finished their studies, worked for a while in the US  and came back to India to offer disadvantaged Indian students a chance to do what they had managed to do with relative ease : gain admission in one of the country’s IITs and pave a far smoother path for themselves towards success. Idealists at heart, Saxena and his partners wanted to make a difference by helping many more chart out courses as they themselves had. The company started with 3 employees and worked with 25-odd children back then. 

At the time, Saxena’s typical student belonged to a lower middle class income household, had received an indifferent school education, could not afford tutions or coaching at the ubiquitous institutes geared for this  but had the aptitude and scientific temperament to clear the JEE exam that holds the key to entering the clutch of hallowed IITs. Saxena and his team set out to identify and aid such students, setting up Avanti learning centres across many Indian cities. 

Even pre-COVID, Avanti was socially conscious that there were many who couldn’t afford even their not so high priced coaching. They knew how critical the public school system was to India’s progress and how broken it was and that talent was everywhere even if opportunity was not. As a result, the founders set up two entities - one for profit to work with students from private schools and a second not for profit that worked primarily with state governments. The first would generate some money that could then help the second thrive. Both the entities progressed with the non-profit managing to make inroads in 240 schools in  Haryana and with some Jawahar Navodaya Vidyalayas, helping class 9-12 students with their math and science learning to make them JEE ready.

But post pandemic with the closure of schools, Avanti’s inputs were called upon across states. Besides Avanti, Tic-Tac-Learn, Khan Academy, Bodhaguru are some of the other content providers deployed by various states to reach students.

The pandemic experience has been transformational for Avanti as an organisation as it has opened its eyes to new previously unexplored horizons. Avanti Fellows, the  not-for-profit, now runs programs in over 300 government schools across India - in Haryana, Karnataka, Maharashtra, Orissa and Jharkhand. Over 50,000 students attend after-school and in-school programs facilitated by government school teachers. The organization provides after-school programs for the IIT JEE and NEET for 10,000 students in the Jawahar Navodaya Vidyalayas and helps government school teachers in Haryana use recorded video content and worksheets to help students in Haryana improve their performance on board exams. These programs run for 15 hours a week with all services being provided free of charge.  

Over the past 6 months to one year, the company has reached over 10 million students in the states of Haryana, Himachal Pradesh, Rajasthan and Madhya Pradesh learn every day through teacher-organised WhatsApp groups. The model is simple : the government has mandated and  supported the creation of these groups  and through a large systematic survey conducted by J-PAL, it has been found  that close to 60% of all students enrolled are now in the groups. Daily lesson plans are sent to students which include YouTube playlists and PDF assignments.  Around 20% of all students are consuming these regularly as per available data. Close to 60% of all students are participating in a weekly test and test results are being monitored closely. On the weekly quizzes, in general, about 2.5 - 3 lakh students of Grades 9th to 12th respond. This is implemented through Google forms. The average score is about 5.5/10, which suggests that students are able to master about half of the content.

More recently, Avanti has built an open-source free tool being used by the state that makes these Whatsapp lessons more interactive called Plio - students are able to answer questions while watching the video. This has improved retention on the video by over 70% and also creates a lot of rich data for the state officials to look at to evaluate the success on at-home online learning. 

In what can only be called a heartening development, Avanti’s Saxena says that they have found that there is a lot of motivation among the kids to learn at home and this is against many odds. “There are still significant challenges including device availability and time on learning but the response is strong enough that we are working with at least two states (Haryana and Himachal) on a state-wide at-home learning rollout even after the pandemic ends”, he adds. Currently, they are working on deploying US $4.5 million towards bringing low income students online. Grants have been offered by Micheal and Susan Dell foundation, USAID, JP Morgan and the Morgridge Family Foundation.

Most children have used borrowed phones or family member phones to study during this time. As a consequence participation rates on "mandated" items like weekly tests are high (60%) but on "voluntary" items like daily learning are low (8%). “Until we get meaningful time on learning at home we will see limited impact”, he admits. Saxena also says that the technology and products needed to serve government school students are going to be completely different from what today's ed-tech sector offers. 

Going forward, Avanti plans to get teachers more involved as they are best placed to encourage students to do additional work online at home. “If we can get this to happen, the likelihood of really solving the problem is much higher as teachers are the biggest drivers of adoption”, he explains. Parents trust the teachers more than the state system or NGOs and any solution needs to give the teachers agency and be built through their participation. Further, he says that the technology and products needed to serve government school students are going to be completely different from today's ed-tech industry as we see it.

Bikkrama Daulet Singh, co-managing director of Central Square Foundation, an education think tank, says that home learning is here to stay post Covid. “Governments, NGOs and other stakeholders need to look at ways to make the home learning program more structured, link closer with instruction in the class, enhance teacher involvement and look seriously at ongoing engagement strategies”. 

Meanwhile, Avanti’s for profit  centres continue to work with over 10,000 students in small towns in Uttar Pradesh, Maharashtra Karnataka and Bihar who are enrolled in partner schools where the students pay a small incremental fee (~2,000 per month) to get integrated coaching for IIT JEE and NEET. 42 learning centres operate currently. Today, the company has over 100 full time employees, of which 50-odd work in the for profit venture and 50 in the not-for-profit, with the latter now poised for take-off. The pandemic has altered Avanti’s own trajectory, path and inclinations, bringing to life Einstein’s words : in the midst of every crisis lies a great opportunity.