Schoolnet India expects a five-fold jump in subscribers for its after-school learning programme Geneo 

Edtech company Schoolnet India Ltd expects a five-fold jump in subscribers at around 30 lakh for its after-school learning programme Geneo in the next 12-18 months. Currently, the subscriber base is close to six lakh.

Geneo, a digital initiative of Schoolnet, offers customised learning solutions designed to cater to the needs of students, teachers, educators, parents and communities with a view to improving learning outcomes and the educational eco-system comprehensively.

The company, which currently has tie-ups with about 45,000 schools across the country, plans to add another 75,000-1 lakh schools in the next five years.

According to Arindam Ghosh, Head Strategy, Schoolnet, there has been a “significant” growth in demand for its after-school product during Covid times, with parents seeking continued education services as a majority of schools and educational institutes were closed due to the pandemic.

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“We piloted the after-school product in 2018 and there was significant growth during Covid times. We have six lakh subscribers on the platform and with schools reopening now, we are seeing a good uptick. In the next 12-18 months, we expect it to grow to three million which is an almost 5X jump,” Ghosh told BusinessLine.

Explaining the rationale behind the product, he said, the content being used in school is used in this product also, but it is made more personalised and curated with the help of artificial intelligence inbuilt in back-end. This is a blended application which provides assisted learning and is a holistic package for child to learn more effectively.

While certain applications on the app is free for life, certain features are subscription-based, but is affordably priced. The entire content has been developed in-house and the company also has exclusive partnerships with content players.

Tie-up with schools

Schoolnet provides digital and digital-assisted aid to schools at K-12 level. Incorporated in 1997, the company works primarily with government and affordable private schools, since a majority of the population study in these schools.

“We work with schools, either government or affordable private schools, through multi-year contracts. Under the contract, we digitalise classrooms by providing proprietary integrated teaching devices, curriculum-based digital content that can enable high-engagement teaching and learning within the classroom and we also provide continuous hand-holding and training to teachers on digital pedagogy,” he said.

Schoolnet, which works with government schools across West Bengal, Maharashtra, Delhi and Andhra Pradesh among others, claims to have established presence in 60 per cent of States in the country.

The company, which had standalone revenue of more than Rs 500 crore during the pre-Covid period, has seen its revenues drop in the last two years since a majority of schools have been closed, but has remained profitable. It is looking at exponential revenue growth, along with impact in the middle and bottom of the pyramid driven by its digitally-led services to schools and students that focus on improving the teaching and learning outcomes.

The company developed K-Yan in collaboration with the Indian Institute of Technology (IIT), Mumbai, as a community computer. It is an innovative digital solution designed as a low-cost communication platform for group learning that can transform a wall into an interactive classroom among other technological inputs to achieve creative outcomes. It currently has 70,000 such devices deployed across the country, he said.

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