The age of Computer Science in school education seems to have truly arrived

— Rupesh Shah

CEO and Co-founder,

InOpen Technologies

Computer Masti (CM) is a program to teach Computer Science in schools. It is currently being used by 0.5 mn students across India. CM addresses the need for active computer learning through a cutting edge Computer Science core curriculum. In our interaction with Rupesh Shah, CEO and Co-founder, InOpen Technologies, we delve deeper into the realities of CM and understand some key trends. Excerpts

If you say, ‘urgent need to simplify school curriculum’—can you amplify on that?

A school curriculum needs to take into account various learning strategies based on cognitive, psychomotor, and affective domains. The curriculum needs to prepare the student for a life beyond the classroom. In such a scenario, the student’s ability to exist as an independent individual is vital. One should be able to take decisions, think in different ways to cope with the challenges of life and come up with solutions to resolve the issues of living in a complex social environment.

A curriculum that helps build these life skills and more importantly teaches it in a simple manner is the need of the hour.

If you take the current state of affairs, what are the existing teaching methodologies in K-12 and what are some of the urgent changes/interventions required for effective/relevant skill/content delivery?

K-12 learning needs to undergo large scale change based on how it’s fundamentally taught. While in the recent past teaching methodologies focused upon rote learning with the teacher driving the classroom session and the student being a passive learner today it’s the student who is an active andintelligent participant in the learning process.

The mindset too has undergone a change with the ‘sage on the stage’ outlook giving way to the ‘guide on the side’ approach. Students nowadays can choose and construct their own learning process with the teacher being more of a facilitator who guides the students.

Another fundamental change that needs to be considered is to introduce a holistic learning process which takes into account different learning strategies that focus on concepts, skills, and values. This helps the students to learn in a spiral manner as the underlying concepts help build skills and develop values in a cyclic process which repeats itself in an in-depth manner. The student needs to not only learn about the various ways in which the concepts can be applied in real life scenarios but more importantly, with a learning mindset equipped with 21st century skills such as logical and critical thinking along with excellent communication and collaboration skills. These soft skills go a long way in creating a versatile student who can adapt to various situations according to the circumstances.

If you stack Computer Masti—what exactly it does in changing above scenario and ‘if you say empowering computer education’—in what way?

For a developing country like India, computer literacy has become a vital skill to acquire. With e-learning and digital adaptive learning becoming buzzwords in the recent years, the age of Computer Science in school education seems to have truly arrived.

Computer Masti seeks to fulfil this need by teaching in a holistic manner within a curriculum framework that provides ample scope for boosting the natural ways of learning.

The CM curriculum is instrumental in developing thinking process skills and life skills education while teaching concepts and skills associated with computer usage and programming skills.

The goal of this curriculum is to build a strong base of computer concepts amongst school children at the end of their school education.

CM is designed as a content-service solution with a constructivist pedagogical approach which encourages the characters to keep asking questions, and to explore on their own while learning about computer science in schools. The content apart from teaching the computer literacy skills, also teaches other concepts like thinking process skills (eg. logical reasoning), life skills (eg. team work) and values (eg. Sharing).

If you look at the K-12, what are some of the unique challenges you faced when you are selling this product (CM)?

Some of the challenges we came across are lack of dedicated resources to teach Computer Science in schools. Computer Science still is not given the same importance as is given to other mainstream subjects like Math, Science, etc. It is still treated as an optional/elective subject.

Can you talk about the overall changes CM brought into to the 300 plus schools?

The CM methodology is based upon the Computer Masti books, a DVD of educational tools, applications and games and a support service in the form of a pre-implementation visit and handholding sessions conducted at regular intervals throughout the year. This approach has helped CM to be involved as a partner at every stage of the learning process.

The major changes that this approach has helped achieve are that schools have started looking upon Computer Science as more than just an elective subject. The CM philosophy of integrating life skills while teaching about Computer Science means that learning takes place in a real-life context which has helped the students to relate better with what they are learning.

CM uses different applications such as Scratch which help the students prepare in step-wise and logical thinking which is a precursor to building programming skills.

Teaching concepts before skills means that students are better prepared to understand about any tool or software as they are well aware about the underlying purpose.

Whether it is with regards to the content and technical expertise or the teaching and learning strategies and assistance with evaluating student performance CM provides comprehensive support to ensure that the students receive maximum benefit.

Finally, if you look at the education solutions space—how is the market composed of right now as a vertical in terms of segmentation, competition and what is your vision in terms of company/market share vis-a-vis competition?

India has 361 mn children eligible for K-12 education, of which only 219 mn are enrolled into schools. The gap is shrinking every year 90 mn students go to 90,000 private schools and the remaining 129 mn go to 935,000 government schools.

CS education is taught in all private schools and at least 25% of the government schools.

Considering the average spend/child/annum of `400 on CS education in a private school, the present market opportunity is `3,600 crore from private schools alone. This figure will increase at least by 10% YOY because of inflation, leading to a market of `5,270 crore in FY16-17. Of course, we are ignoring the fact that the total number of schools would also increase substantially during this period.

Apart from these, vocational education, government schools, book publishing and digital content are other markets which are big and have good potential in the country.