Right education should help the student, not only to develop his capacities but to understand his own highest interest. But, is it valid for Indian education system? It is usually said Indian Education System is not good and students are mainly focused on cramming, mugging and memorizing. The schools are treated as factories and producing millions of defective products every year and these are students. Some are born brilliant and they find their own ways to study as they have capabilities to learn themselves, but what about those who are dependent on school education? They are not taught how to think, rather they learn and how to stay disciplined. Yes, undoubtedly an Indian education system has a vast and informative syllabus, but there is some lag in teaching that's why students don't understand their interest and the traditional methods have to be changed with some new techniques and then there is a need of Startup called SRJNA.
SRJNA approach
SRJNA is a brainchild of Sharad Bansal and few other founders, which aims at providing a combined education model using real & virtual teaching aids and methodologies for imparting 5D classroom experiential learning and is a smart online assessment platform with deep analytics especially for K-10 students, teachers, and parents.
Sharad Bansal did his Bachelors of Technology from IIT Delhi but when he entered the college, there was an incident when one of his professor of said: "Where have you done your schooling as your fundamentals are weak". It was a distressing moment for him as, practical experience of his knowledge was missing. Sharad told Brainbuxa that, "We were discussing these stories with some friends and remembering school days, I remember a teacher came with some globe in class, mathematics teacher, who came with all the instruments, and then an idea came what if we replicate old traditional methods with some practical aspect and one of my friends told me that he doing similar research in education and we all grouped up, met HC Verma the rolemodel of physics in India and some other professors of Physics."
The question arises how to build this missing concept among students, how they can start THINKING. Sharad and his team found a solution and it's true for Sharad that "I am not a teacher, but an Awakener". When we asked about SRJNA teaching Sharad simply said, "When lecture starts in the class a teacher comes and start briefing various topics then there is homework, lessons, class work, but practical aspect are always missing, the teachers tell you definition but tutorial class is missing. This type of teaching is one way learning while in graduation there is an LPT kind of methodology lecture, practical and tutorial method. We are nurturing this type of practical aspect in the schools, i.e. we are equipping teachers with some tools which they can use during lectures. Suppose teachers want to explain certain things with a diagram, then drawing it will take time and it will be difficult to visualize only 1-2 students brilliant students can visualize. Hence, we at SRJNA offer help making science and technology easy to understand by the students and filling the gap of practical aspect so when they go to college either in science or any other stream they can use their learning."
He further explains by saying,
"When we try to develop curiosity among students and teachers say you create the ambiance in the classroom, attracts them to learn and they start thinking and thus we trigger the thinking approach among students. We believe that there is no need to coach students simply shows them methods. There is no need to learn definitions they need to develop it through technology and with this they will have faith in teachers and education. Total we have 110 models equipped with us and now we are providing it to the teachers as there are enough number of teachers, schools, and students; we proudly say that WE ARE TEACHERS COMPANY."
It's true to say that, "Study without desire spoils the memory, and it retains nothing that it takes in" . SRJNA would be really effective as it will create thinking approach among students and on asking Sharad that does they believe in online classes he firmly said,
"We have a 5-dimensional approach to teaching and we believe that there should less online classes. Our team believes that true learning only comes when you experience it, see it, touch it, feel it, understand and do yourself. So, videos or smart class must be avoided and we have made assessment platform using the typical traditional method with 3-dimensional simulations of similar content."
SRJNA in schools
Sharad said, "We have around 100 schools or in our reach from Rajasthan and NCR region; to scale it in other states we have built an assessment platform which is free and we can have the adaptive solution out of it, when the schools realize the USP of content of SRJNA, the values of our tools, they call us or mail us through our online portal they can put a query, we also organize principal meets, teacher conference, online queries and give demonstrations. If teachers feel that I should have these physical models in my schools, then we talk ahead and start SRJNA based teaching. We have started getting queries from Bangalore, West Bengal, Maharashtra and many other states, but there were operation limitations. Yes, we will scale this up in the future. We surmise that along with SRJNA tools there is always a need where teachers and students can together and discuss."
Startup booming without huge funds
"You don't have to be great to start, but you have to start to be great." SRJNA founders had a tough time in beginning all this, and when we talk about monetary things then they used to save 10,000 rupees every month from their college time only. Then gradually after the model and everything was ready they won various competitions which helped them in growing from where they were. Some seed funding by RAIN and many other organizations made their survival possible. Sharad also told us that, they won DIGITAL India Competition, selected among the top 20 candidates and was mentored for 3 months program by Intel, University of California and IIM Ahmedabad. He continued saying, "We are doing things, not for money, we are in a good direction and we will get support for good causes."
In the month of April, they launched the Prepkin assessment engine for teachers and students to create, practice share and analyze tests on just a single click where teachers customize the tests as per their needs and students get real life problems based on experimental learning. Also, planning to launch its own tinkering lab in a month, promoting the government initiative, "Atal Tinkering Labs" whichaims to foster curiosity, a creativity and imagination in young minds.
SRJNA founder Perception on Startup's
Sharad expounded, "In my age group I see all the parts of the country, everyone wants to be an entrepreneur and of course it is good, but first ask yourself you want to do business with the core of your heart or you are getting attracted for glamour just because top entrepreneurs are in the media. If you are passionate to do work, to do business, then you choose Entrepreneurship. At the age of 20-25 you can take but after 25 or marriage you cannot take the risk of failing startup. If you have plans for startup, then start early in the college. If you feel there is some value to your startup, then you can extend; there are so many incubations, investors, everyone in the ecosystem is there to help you. If you have anyone doing something good then do not copy their ideas have your own ideas and there are so many mentors who will say it's a rubbish idea, but one should have a clear mindset that your startup is good and it will work. Don't have the mindset that doing the job is not the good or creating job is better, both are good you should ask yourself what you are doing and what you want to do."
Sharad's words about Brainbuxa..
"I have studied about Brainbuxa and what I realized is that a student or anyone elder have a great impact from whatever they are seeing in the media, there is no common platform for students in fact a very small part of student life in the media or newspaper. No common platform dedicated to students. Education is somewhat an unorganized sector and Brainbuxa is organizing this where students, parents, teachers can find useful educational content, about new technologies and can have access to iconic people and iconic companies in one place and I wish Brainbuxa a best of luck."
Sharad Bansal and his team are really hardworking and doing a great job for students. We would say all schools should start developing this thinking process among students for their better future and anyone if it is parents, teachers or students have any query from Brainbuxa or SRJNA then you can drop a message in the comment box.