After committing to improve the digital economy a while back, Google has kick-started an e-Learning Google for Education program in India. This time, it has partnered with the state government of Maharashtra to provide digital classroom services to millions of students and teachers in the state.
As per the program, students and teachers will be able to access classes that blend with their current curriculum online free of cost. Google’s G-Suite for Education, Google Classroom, Google Meet will help students and individual tutors connect even from remote places.
The company after announcing a $10 billion investment in India a few weeks back, said that the new partnership will cover twenty three million teachers and students in total. The government had conducted a survey among teachers to know the interest in digital education and within 48 hours it had received close to 150,000 registrations.
This has fast-tracked the development and the new program makes Maharashtra the first state in the country to launch G Suite for Education and Google Classroom as students are stuck at homes due to the lockdown. The tutors and students will now be provided with a G-Suite ID of their own so that they can access content from anywhere.
With this program, Google will provide Google forms for quiz and tests, Google Meet for video-conferencing, organize and manage assignments and more. Through Tech from Anywhere, it has created a Hub in Marathi to eliminate the linguistic difficulties as well.
Talking about the program, Uddhav Thackeray, the Chief Minister of Maharashtra said, “We have come a step closer to answering the questions of future of education”. Education Minister Varsha Gaikwad said that the program will cover 190,000 schools in the State.
The global pandemic has made education take an alternate route and India is no exception. Companies like Byju’s, Udemy, Vedantu and others have already assembled millions of students. However, Google’s partnership with government organizations like CBSE, Kaivalaya Education Foundation (KEF) aims to reach more masses including the underprivileged who often struggle to gain funding for their education.
