Vertical-Education: Identifying the Lakshya

Education has always been considered as a socio-economic leveler, providing people with knowledge that can help improve their livelihood. The recent technology advancements meant that the countries across the globe can now accelerate the human resource development by harnessing ICT.

A good example of this is the district learning center in district Chhindwara, Madhya Pradesh. Through a highly successful PPP model between Cisco, education, business, government and communities, this center mentored by Cisco and powered by Cisco technologies reaches out to students in the district and makes high-quality education well within their reach, by connecting them with teachers located elsewhere in India.

Started in October 2008, 4 NIIT graduates started a pilot project in a private school tutoring 100 students with 2 teachers for physics and maths for class 12th. For this we used Cisco Webexm, and we found our 8 mentors from Cisco, says Anurag Pawar, director, Lakshya Networks, the company that operates the centers.

After the pilot success, the company went on to set up 3 villages (at Churai, Bichchua, Umrana) in Chindwara district itself. The company now runs 7 centers with 723 student community for the crash courses (PMT/PET entrance).

Lakshya now provides afterschool Maths, Science (Physics and Chemistry), Accounting and English tutions to students at nominal rates, and has now evolved this into a viable model generating revenues to support the companys efforts. The other important aspect of the online education model is that the institute is reaching out to more than 240 students in Indias rural sector and providing education mostly to the children of farmers. The students are located in 4 small towns located around the base town of Chhindwara.

Seeding the Project

There was a demand for quality education tuition and support in Chhindwara in Madhya Pradesh and remote villages around the town, but this was hampered by the lack of opportunities due to their location. The idea was conceptualized when the 4 NIIT graduates prepared a presentation for uploading the teacher session content online, however the idea soon gave way to Lakshya Networks with Ciscos guidance.

The young entrepreneurs then put forth the plan for an online education center for the district. They were then given guidance on everything from setting up the new business to marketing and finance models by the mentors in Cisco. Apart from mentoring guidance, Cisco assisted the group with a cash grant and the provision of communications technology. Using this knowledge and support, the group established a new education company called Lakshya Network.
The centers boast of the latest equipmentscomputers, projectors, routers for internet connectivity, IT Cam, microphone, speakers, digital pads for teacher writing. Pawar intends to scale up the existing 7 centers to 100 in Madhya Pradesh.