How cloud helps Malaysia bridge rural-urban education divide

The Bakrid holiday is on and yet Akif Kassim is in school. The 11-year-old is part of Victoria Institution's rugby team, which has a crucial game lined up later in the day. But I met Kassim not on the field, but in the classroom, where he and some other students of Class VI have their Chromebooks on; their teacher has hers, and they are learning a 'Life Skills' lesson — on three-pin electric plugs.

The children are demonstrating to a visiting media delegation in Kuala Lumpur the functioning of the Malaysian government’s '1Bestarinet School in Cloud’ programme, a virtual learning platform that makes intensive use of Information Communication Technology to connect over 10,000 State-run schools and 5.5 million students across the country, over a cloud network that runs on 4G technology.

A project of the country's Ministry of Education, the 15-year programme that took off in 2012 is being executed by Xchanging Malaysia, a joint venture of Malaysia's YTL Corporation and the UK-based business solutions company Xchanging PLC.

Providing both infrastructure and content — from recognised players such as YouTube, National Geographic and BBC, and curated matter from participant teachers — the project, says an official, has made quality education accessible to students across Malaysia, thus helping bridge the differences between rural-urban education.

“Students from participating schools — be it the prestigious Victoria Institution in Kuala Lumpur, or those within the dense rainforests of eastern Malaysia — thus have access to the same systems and educational content,” says Subramanian Gopalaratnam, Xchanging's Global Head (Innovation & Technology).

The country spends not less than 20 per cent of its annual budget on education, and the total expense on 1Bestarinet over 15 years is likely to be 4 billion ringgit (₹ 6,190 crore), says P Kamalanathan, Malaysia’s Deputy Minister for Education.

“It is not impossible, but it will take a long time to bridge the gap between urban and rural infrastructure — places where only movement by boat is possible, or where there are more elephants than children — but with technology, we can make a lot possible. The vision of 1Bestarinet is to connect all 10,178 schools in the country to the internet on a common learning platform to provide quality education to students,” says Kamalanathan.

And have there been tangible results, he is asked. “We have seen sharing of knowledge between urban and rural schools. Students from schools in rural areas are more confident now in using technology, and even in speaking English. It is a new way of teaching. We are seeing the fruits.”

Xchanging hopes to replicate the model in India, where it is in talks with various State governments. “We see huge potential for transforming education in India with a similar model,” says Alok Sinha, President & Head, Global Applications & Engineering Services, Country Manager-India. “I don’t know if the government is at the right level, but it is certainly making the right sounds,” Sinha says.

India plans The company says it can tap into the worrying mismatch between the demand for quality education and its delivery. As part of its intention to roll out a customised version of its end-to-end solution — Xchanging intends to tweak the Malaysian model to suit its needs in India, where 4G technology is in its nascence, and scale and complexity, a lot more — the company intends to launch a pilot study soon. Its results are expected by the end of the calendar year.

The writer was in Kuala Lumpur recently at the invitation of Xchanging Malaysia

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