The School Education Department, Government of Haryana, has launched project e-Adhigam, giving Samsung tablets to every Government School student of classes 10th, 11th and 12th in Haryana in 2022, with integrated PAL solution for remedial and supplementary learning support. Let’s learn about the launch of the e-Adhigam Scheme initiated by the Chief Minister of Haryana to boost digital education and deliver online learning opportunities to 5,00,000 students in government schools across the state.
For the Personalized Adaptive Learning platform on these tablets, through a tendering and evaluation process in two phases, the Department has awarded work to three PAL solution providers, and iDream Education, a Haryana Startup, is one of them, getting the opportunity to implement its solution iPrep PAL across its home state for the five subjects allocated to it.
What does e-Adhigam mean?
e-Adhigam stands for Advance Digital Haryana Initiative of Government with Adaptive Modules. Adaptive Learning is a leading force in educational technology, both in India and around the world. It provides a framework that allows every student to shape their unique learning path.
Inception of e-Adhigam Scheme
The e-Adhigam initiative has been introduced in response to the challenges experienced by numerous families amid the COVID-19 pandemic while transitioning to online education. The government of Haryana launched the initiative to ensure the availability of digital modes of learning so that no student suffers any academic loss.
What steps have been taken to accomplish this?
Tablets were provided to 5 lakh students in Grades 10th to 12th to support their in-school and at-home learning. Additionally, the focus was not only on improving classroom learning but also on providing solutions that keep students aware of global events and affairs.
Focus Areas of e-Adhigam Scheme
- Enabling a low-maintenance and secure device: The School Education Department distributed each tablet with integrated mobile device management (MDM) software. This way, they restricted access solely to whitelisted content, enabling the use of tablets only for learning purposes.
- Delivering academic content through an adaptive learning system: To achieve this, the focus of the School Education department was on enabling high-quality curriculum-aligned content in vernacular languages with a solution that has an easy user interface. Additionally, the department also prioritized including interactive features such as games, quizzes, a repository of practice questions and discussion prompts. As a result, the School Education Department collaborated with PAL vendors who had or could curate freely available content from different platforms, delivering it through PAL software. PAL stands for Personalized Adaptive Learning.
“iDream Education has been selected as one of the three providers chosen to integrate its iPrep PAL solution, focusing on five specified subjects”.
- Access to Internet Data: To ensure every student has access to the Internet every day, the e-Adhigam Initiative also includes a reliable Internet pack of 2GB per day.
Moreover, the School Education Department has taken the role of teachers into account and emphasized on providing thorough training to teachers, ensuring proficiency in accessing essential features of PAL solutions designed for both teachers and students.
“Haryana achieves a historic milestone as the first state to adopt personalized adaptive learning through tablet-based project”.
Impact of iDream Education’s iPrep PAL Software being used in e-Adhigam Initiative
- Out of the 6,807 individuals who undertook both a diagnostic test and the final examination in the field of business studies, there was a 38% enhancement in their performance.
- Out of the 3,926 individuals who undertook both a diagnostic test and the final examination in the field of Economics, there was a 47% enhancement in their performance.
- Out of the 9214 individuals who undertook both a diagnostic test and the final examination in the field of geography, there was a 47% enhancement in their performance.
Out of all students using the iPrep PAL Solution who attempted both a diagnostic test and the final test in the subjects of business studies, economics, and geography, showed an improvement of 44%.
How does iDream Education, one of the PAL Vendors in the e-Adhigam, is helping officials measure the impact of the initiative?
iDream Education has a dedicated team to provide support to students and teachers, ensuring the timely resolution of issues and a seamless learning experience.
Moreover, iPrep PAL features a centralized reporting dashboard that meticulously monitors each student’s use and learning outcomes data. These reports are subsequently shared with officials on a daily basis for the purpose of impact assessment and tracking.
Apart from this, a dedicated team of iDream Education consistently monitors students’ learning interests and progress, compiling a quarterly summary to ensure that the solution is helping students bridge learning gaps and achieve grade-level proficiency.
Apart from continuous evaluation by PAL Vendors
The Chief Minister, Shri Manohar Lal Khattar Ji, personally interacts with students and their parents who have received tablets under the scheme, reflecting a commitment to fostering educational growth and inclusivity.
Why was there a need for personalized adaptive learning solutions?
As emphasized by the Haryana government regarding the learning loss experienced by many students due to the COVID-19 pandemic, there exists a cohort of students with historical learning gaps. This issue is compounded by promoting students to higher grades based solely on aggregate scores despite the persistent gaps in their learning. This situation is of great concern for teachers, who find it challenging to address the learning gaps through classroom teaching, considering the diverse strengths, levels of comprehension, and learning stages of students.
To tackle this challenge, Personalized Adaptive Learning (PAL) emerges as a pivotal solution, providing individualized learning paths tailored to each student’s comprehension level, grade, and learning stage. PAL stands as a forefront educational technology both in India and globally, offering a framework that empowers students to shape their unique learning journeys.
The iPrep PAL software, used by students in the e-Adhigam Initiative, dynamically adjusts its content based on real-time student performance. This adaptive approach not only offers personalized learning experiences but also provides valuable insights into individual progress, contributing to a more effective and responsive learning environment. Students have joyfully adopted learning through tablets, using personalized adaptive learning software and showing academic progress. They say,
These free tablets have not only facilitated education but have also empowered us to prepare for competitive exams.
How does iPrep PAL align with the requirements of the e-Adhigam Initiative launched by the Haryana Government?
iPrep PAL is an enjoyable & personalized adaptive learning solution on tablets, notebooks and mobile for classes 3rd to 12th, all subjects in both English and Hindi medium.
- iPrep PAL is based on the EdTech Tulna framework for Personalized Adaptive Learning and is designed to function both offline and online. The selection of PAL vendors in e-Adhigam is done after thorough consultations with experts from IIT Bombay. A comprehensive framework was developed to evaluate PAL vendors comprehensively. This evaluation was based on inputs from pilot studies conducted in schools and specific features related to PAL products and processes.
- iPrep PAL synchronizes with the state’s DIKSHA platform through an API and incorporates usage reporting into a central MIS. This aligns with the School Education Department’s vision of partnering with PAL vendors capable of curating diverse and freely available content from various platforms and delivering it through a Personalized and Adaptive Learning (PAL) platform.
- Each chapter within iPrep PAL features a diagnostic assessment designed to identify individual learning needs. This assessment tailors a personalized learning journey, offering practice questions and remedial video lessons aligned with Bloom’s Taxonomy. PAL Solution by iDream Education is designed to empower students to address learning gaps at their own pace, allowing for unlimited attempts at practice and mastery.
- The learning path on iPrep PAL guides takes students through connected topics from junior grades, addressing historical learning gaps and enabling them to attain proficiency at their current grade level. This completely aligns with the vision of CM Manohar Lal Khattar ji, who aims to empower students in overcoming the learning loss caused by the COVID-19 pandemic.
- Every chapter on iPrep PAL has a final test to determine the achievement of desired learning outcomes with integrated reports seamlessly sync to a monitoring dashboard. This ensures that e-Adhigam officials, teachers, and parents stay updated on students’ learning progress.
Conclusion
The State government’s e-Adhigam initiative stands as a transformative milestone, aligning seamlessly with the Prime Minister’s Digital India vision. iDream Education expresses gratitude to the Haryana Government for the invaluable opportunity to empower students through adaptive learning. The initiative exemplifies the power of government-led partnerships in ensuring universal access to digital education, propelling students toward grade-level learning, and ultimately contributing to the robust human capital that is pivotal for the nation’s progress.
As we celebrate this commendable step, there remains a hopeful anticipation for more such collaborative endeavors that will shape the future of education and propel the nation towards a knowledge-driven era.
