NITI Aayog ties up with BYJU’S to provide free high-quality education to children

NITI Aayog has partnered with BYJU’S to provide children from 112 aspirational districts of the country free access to BYJU’S high-quality and tech-driven learning programmes.

The collaboration will feature two main components:

BYJU’S Career-Plus programme, under Aakash+BYJU’S, will identify and provide high-quality test prep coaching to 3000 meritorious students of classes 11 and 12 who aspire to appear for NEET and JEE.

A voluntary programme for children of school-going age, classes 6-12, who can opt in to receive scholastic content from BYJU’S learning app for 3 years, under its social impact initiative, ‘Education for All’.

The project envisages establishment of a dedicated working group that will create a knowledge, innovation, and strategy support system. The team will also actively monitor and evaluate programme implementation to enable efficacy and ensure better scope of delivery.

NITI Aayog CEO Amitabh Kant, “Technology has played a key role in helping ensure continuity and a lot of classrooms have moved to an “online” format. In many ways, this has catalysed the development of innovations in the education space, and it is imperative for us to re-imagine education and keep pace with these innovations. Effective use of technology in education can aid transformation and with BYJU’S joining us, the students in these aspirational districts will get an opportunity to access quality education.”

Byju Raveendran, Founder and CEO, BYJU’S, said, “Through our Education for All programme, we have been empowering and impacting millions of children across the country, and by partnering with NITI Aayog, our efforts are being strengthened further. Education holds the key to driving society forward, and we believe that every child, irrespective of their socio-economic background, deserves to have access to quality education. We are confident that with this partnership, children from under-served communities and locations will be empowered with tech-enabled learning and bring in positive systemic changes in the education ecosystem.”

For the career-plus programme, students will be selected through a pre-designed test and provided teaching and content material, along with mentoring support and guidance. This initiative will combine the best of classroom and online learning, thus providing a hybrid model of education. Apart from dedicated centres for implementing support, students will also have access to digital infrastructure in the form of devices (tablets/smartphones).