The Khan Academy and Central Square Foundation announced the launch of Khan Academy - Hindi. This platform, which will provide a similar experience to Khan Academy’s English platform, will initially cover a select range of grades for the NCERT-mapped Maths curriculum and aims to continue to make more videos, practice exercises and tutorials available over time in Hindi, for free.
Khan Academy is a US-based non-profit organisation whose mission is to provide a free, world-class education for anyone, anywhere. And Central Square Foundation is a grantmaking organisation and policy thinktank focused on improving quality of school education in India. Earlier this year, Khan Academy and Central Square Foundation collaborated to localise and translate the English platform. Central Square Foundation is also supporting Khan Academy to pilot the Hindi platform in Government and private schools across India.
The partnership is a result of their firm belief in the potential of free and open educational resources in local Indian languages to significantly improve student learning levels. The Annual Status of Education Report (ASER) 2014 has revealed that only 44.1 per cent of Class VIII students in rural India can do division. Providing students personalised learning solutions can help bridge the learning gap.
At the event, Sal Khan, CEO and founder of Khan Academy talked about Khan Academy’s strategic vision for India. Khan Academy took its first step towards this vision by appointing Sandeep Bapna as the country manager for India in September 2015. Apart from this, Khan Academy also plans to partner with the Central and State Governments and other organisations to implement the platform in schools that specifically target children from low-income communities.