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How technology can improve equitable access to education
In the seventh episode of Leading into Tomorrow, Kait Borsay explores how digital innovation has helped India reduce learning poverty with leaders from the Indian government and World Bank.
Access to a quality education is important in every country. But, in India, it was a particular challenge with 260m school students speaking 1,700 languages. Using technology, the Government of India took an innovative approach to its education delivery to reduce the prevalence of learning poverty.
In this episode, presenter and reporter Kait Borsay explores how the Government of India created the world’s largest digital education platform, DIKSHA, to solve its unique challenge. Her guests are:
Dr. Amarendra Behera, Joint Director, Central Institute of Education & Technology, National Council of Education Research and Training in the Ministry of Education, Government of India
Shabnam Sinha, Lead Education Specialist at the World Bank in India
Shankar Maruwada, Co-founder and CEO at EkStep Foundation in Bangalore
The conversation explores how the platform has enabled student learning and teacher training in 30 languages by providing access to education materials through a portal, mobile app, radio and television, while also collecting 1.1b learning outcomes through assessments.
The DIKSHA initiative has been so successful, the World Bank is seeking to embed the digital public good in a number of African countries to help them meet their education goals.
Key takeaways:
By deploying technology, the Government of India has increased access to quality education for students and teachers, improving learning poverty among school children.
DISKSHA hosts 300,000 pieces of educational content in 30 languages, facilitating learning using digital technology, radio and TV.
As a digital public good, DIKSHA can be leveraged by other countries to help deliver an equitable education for all.
If you’d like to read more, a full text transcript of this podcast is available.
Kait Borsay
Hello and welcome to Leading into Tomorrow, a podcast series from EY looking at how governments are using technology-driven strategies to help deliver their visions of a better future.
Borsay
I'm your host, Kait Borsay, and each episode we’re joined by expert guests from around the world sharing their specialist insight. This time we're looking at how the delivery of equitable education in India is being transformed by an e-learning platform called DIKSHA.
Borsay
Joining me is Shabnam Sinha, Lead Education Specialist at the World Bank in India. Hello Shabnam.
Shabnam Sinha
Hi, thanks for having me.
Borsay
Dr. Amarendra Behera, Joint Director, Central Institute of Education & Technology, National Council of Education Research and Training in the Ministry of Education in the Indian government. Hello Dr. Behera.
Dr. Amarendra Behera
Hello Kait.
Borsay
And Shankar Maruwada, co-founder and CEO at EkStep Foundation in Bangalore. Hello, Shankar
Shankar Maruwada
Hi Kait.
Borsay
Dr. Behera, let's start with you. You have a long association with education in India. What were the challenges in India's education system before the introduction of DIKSHA?
Dr. Behera
There is a huge education system in a sense because we are so diverse. So, whether it is geographically, culturally, linguistically — even number wise — in the education system, because there are 1.5 million schools in India, 8.5 million plus teachers in the country in school education alone, and 260 million school students alone. So it poses a challenge as far as numbers are concerned and as far as the education is concerned and as far as the comparable quality of education and the learning outcome to be embedded while mastered by every child that is concerned.
There are 1,700-plus languages coexisting in India. So providing education which is of a quality in a child's own language and having a comparable quality has been always a challenge.
Borsay
Well Shankar, you're passionate about the application of technology in learning. In layman's terms, what is DIKSHA and how does it work?
Maruwada
DIKSHA is digital public infrastructure. DIKSHA has created the digital highways in the country. And so how it works is: A local body in a local state can use these highways to connect its physical content textbooks in the education system to digital content. So DIKSHA offers a set of capabilities as infrastructure. One among them is connecting the physical to the digital. We call it “phygital.”
The way it manifests is through uniquely numbered QR codes in textbooks through which a child or teacher can access content, digital content relevant to that topic. This infrastructure is used by more than 60 boards of education across 35 states to link their local textbooks to their local content. There are more than 300,000 pieces of content on DIKSHA. Now there are 600 million textbooks with an average of 10 QR codes each connected to these 300,000 pieces of content in 30-plus languages. And over the past few years, this has resulted in 61 billion minutes of learning across the whole country.
A second shared capability is teacher training. But again, the same philosophy. So every state can decide what kind of training to what teachers, when.
A third infrastructure capability is the ability to collect learning outcomes of children through assessment, which has resulted in the collection of learning assessment records of more than 1.1 billion learning outcomes. The teacher training has resulted in the training of around seven million teachers and 140 million verified credentials. It has created the world's largest digital public infrastructure in education, which was needed to solve India's unique challenges of scale and diversity.
Borsay
And so the scope and size of it is incredible for learning, for teacher training and for data collection.
Shabnam, your work focuses on human development, education and return on investment. How does the World Bank then view its collaboration with the Government of India to support this e-learning platform?
Sinha
We've been very proud to be associated with DIKSHA through our national project, which is called STARS, which is a US$500 million support to the Government of India. What is interesting about DIKSHA is it's free. So, from the perspective of the World Bank, if you look at the economic returns of this instrument, it is incalculable, because I think perhaps it's one of the smartest advanced interventions of the Government of India. So that's the first thing where we feel very excited about this subsidy which the government has put into the system.
Learning poverty, which the World Bank defines as those students who are at the age group of 10 and who cannot read a simple text. You know, globally learning poverty has been very high if you take the averages. And India, it was at 54 before the pandemic hit. But after the pandemic the learning poverty became 57. So there was enhancement in terms of the kids or number of kids who could not actually read age-appropriate text, by about 3%.
So one of the reason of, you know, perhaps not such a great loss that was expected has been the fact that there was DIKSHA. Whether you are at the national level or you are at the state level or you are at the district level or you are at some district level or at the school level, you have access to this material. In some way or the other, you are able to access the materials which are there.
It's actually been a democratization of this whole initiative. There are opportunities to further enrich it and to further improve upon it. What is interesting is the data is attributable and quantifiable. Therefore, can the government make better use of it? You know, to come up with understanding of where are the shortcomings, where does the shoe pinch actually, where are the kids not able to learn? What are the teacher deficiencies and how can that be supported?
Borsay
Dr. Behera, DIKSHA has seen unparalleled adoption in India over the last few years. What impact has it had so far in transforming India's education system?
Dr. Behera
The resources available through the DIKSHA portal and the DIKSHA mobile app are also available through 400 radio stations for visually challenged children. The radio content has a coherent access. And also as a part of 1 + 1 details to be channeled from K-12 onwards, each class plus 1 to 12 having a TV channel under the Prime Minister’s EBITDA program.
So the video content already available on DIKSHA is simultaneously and coherently disseminated through TV and radio channels. So that are making that it is not only that DIKSHA is providing content through online, through portal and app, it is also providing on air.
And another important thing is the DIKSHA content is also available offline. So that would be a challenge to scale 4.2 million teachers who are teaching at elementary level with 18 course modules in 10 different Indian languages. So the DIKSHA platform provided that service and vision that every teacher should have a mandatory 50 hours’ training per annum.
Dr. Behera
So the DIKSHA platform made it possible to run a teacher training program at India scale and skill training of the teachers could have been possible through DIKSHA and with nearly 4% cost. We used to spend millions of rupees for turning up pictures in cascade mode.
Borsay
Alright, Shankar, let's pick up with you on the data and analytics from DIKSHA. What have you learned so far and how is this information being applied to improve the access to quality education for all students in India?
Maruwada
When you use a smart watch like a Fitbit, you can see the measurement of your heartbeat. Imagine the heartbeat of learning of a whole country visible. That's what DIKSHA has enabled. Whenever a child or a teacher is using DIKSHA, that comes across as an anonymous ping. As a result, you get a collective pattern of when is the content being used, what kind of content is being used? How long is the content being used? Which languages, what type of content? All of this data is now available to the administrators.
So, at some level, when you have a large, complex administrative structure like India, data, which is the universal language, allows for better collaboration among various stakeholders. This creates an environment of accountability. If a particular district has not completed its fair share of teacher training, if a particular topic is not being accessed by the children because for whatever reason, it raises questions. It creates conversations. So we're hoping in the next five years as a result of some very strong policies of the Government of India, of some good basic DIKSHA infrastructure, it will lead us towards the ultimate aim of solving for the low learning levels in the country.
Borsay
Shabnam, over to you now, and the World Bank is involved in initiatives to support digital learning. What are the opportunities then to apply e-learning platforms like DIKSHA in other developing economies?
Sinha
So it's very interesting you mention that Kait, because the World Bank already has a very vibrant India Lighthouse initiative and, through that, we have a component which is the India-Africa partnership component.
Within the India Lighthouse program, we’re recognizing that India is in a leadership position, especially on technology and its effective use. We thought that it would be an opportune moment to share India's technology public goods with our global teams. Through the bank operational teams, we're trying to share DIKSHA in other parts of the world, especially in Africa. And we are through our projects, so once the sharing has happened, because we have large projects in the Africa region, this experience is going to be embedded within our projects. So therefore, you are building a whole sustainability platform between the India and Africa partnership.
Borsay
Well to round off this podcast, let's get all your thoughts on how the rapid advances in technology can be best applied over the next five to 10 years to support teachers and students, and to transform the delivery of equitable education. Dr. Behera, let's start with you.
Dr. Behera
Kait, given the technology every now and then coming in, and newer and newer technologies coming in — even ChatGPT is already there, artificial intelligence, even machine learning — with the current scenario, we strongly feel that personalized adaptive learning platform, strengthening DIKSHA infrastructure and taking it forward for providing the personalized attention on the adaptive learning situations so that we can on every minute-to-minute basis see that actually the real-time data, what it is and what kind of support the children want and what kind of support the teachers want.
Borsay
Shankar, let's ask you the same question. How can advances in technology be best applied in the next five to 10 years to keep this transformational journey going?
Maruwada
As a result of the advances in artificial intelligence over the last few months, we can safely say that we have left behind the era of calculation as a commodity, computing as a commodity, and entered the age of reasoning as a commodity. And this has huge implications because, as a result, technology not only will be a disruptor in education, which means it will force us to change what we teach our children, we could also democratize access to a lot of capabilities like content and training.
And one important barrier that we still have to solve as a country in India is the barrier of language. A lot of children, if they do not know English, are forced to stay away from technical subjects. A lot of children, if they do not understand the language of the state in which they are, because even a state has so many languages, are learning in a language which is alien to them. So we have languages as a barrier.
In the next five years, we would like to see a lot of transformation of AI-based technology that creates bridges between language. So the language you're born with is the language you think in, but you can access all the content in that language instead of worrying about only accessing in English or something else.
Borsay
Shabnam, finally to you. What are your thoughts?
Sinha
I have two suggestions here. First is that we have an immense amount of data, and it is a very rich bed of resources to be able to analyze learning challenges and to be able to use this as a diagnostic tool to build remedial programs. I think that's very critical as we are struggling with the learning poverty agenda
The second important thing to note here is that we have achieved a massive amount of traction through DIKSHA globally, as well as in the country. Now it's important to build the forward linkages with vocational and skills development.
If you look at, you know, the East Asian countries — Korea, Taiwan, Indonesia — they have made very effective use of YouTube, and other AR/VR instruments (and I'm not a digital expert so …) for simulated learning training programs on vocational education in areas where there are difficult sectors, where there is a paucity of instruments and effective trainers which are specific to particular sectors. So it will be very helpful if we move into that sector.
Having said that, I would like to congratulate India on this hugely futuristic step that has been taken forward in the form of DIKSHA. And on behalf of the World Bank, I would like to say that we are ready to assist the Government of India or state governments in anyway which we can.
Borsay
Well it's been a fascinating conversation. Many thanks to all of you for being on the podcast. Dr. Behera, thank you to you.
Dr. Behera
Thank you very much.
Borsay
Shankar, thank you to you.
Maruwada
Thank you Kait.
Borsay
And Shabnam, thank you.
Sinha
Thanks Kait.
Borsay
Well, do join us again for more insights into how governments are delivering technology-driven strategies. Also, subscribe to this series so you won't miss an episode. From me, Kait Borsay, thanks for listening and goodbye.
