NextBillion - An Initiative of the William Davidson Institute at the University of Michigan

Monday, December 7, 2015

Tata Trusts, the principal shareholder of the $109b Tata group is endeavouring to break out of its ‘traditional brick and mortar’ approach to education by partnering with Khan Academy, an American online teaching provider that already reaches out to 2.6 crore student worldwide.

“This is a concept which is refreshingly different, extending free education and knowledge to anyone, anytime and anywhere which can change the world of illiterate to literate,” said Ratan Tata, chairman, TataTrusts, which owns three fourth of Tata Sons. “We expect this initiative to make a tremendous difference to the present and future generations.”

The five year partnership will provide free, world- class education in Maths and Science for anyone who seeks it in India in local languages. The effort is also to focus on designing and improving the Academy’s content creation capacities primarily for the middle and low income students in urban areas in the first two years. In the followingthree years, the plan is to reach out to the rural hinterland.

Along with reaching out to the student community, the partnership is also expected to rope in more teachers both as content creators as well as knowledge seekers who wish to improve their own skills.

Student learning levels in India remain abysmally low and Annual Status of Education Report indicate that 75 per cent of the students in Class 5 are unable to do simple division.