Taking thousands of lives and continuing to across China, Coronovirus has crossed borders and spread to all parts of the world.
It has so far taken the lives of over four thousand people around the world and affected over a lakh people worldwide. The World Health Organization has recently declared the disease a pandemic as it has affected many countries and continues to spread worldwide. Schools, offices, and cinema halls have been closed or restricted in many countries. Conferences and events have been called off. Many countries have closed their international borders. The US has cancelled travel from 26 European countries to the country for the next 30 days. Italy is in total lockdown. So too in many other countries.
Like in many countries, COVID-19 outbreak has crippled normal lives across India. While it has affected workplaces, cinema halls, public gatherings, airports and transportation services in major cities, education is impacted majorly due to the virus spreading in the country. Like in many countries, many schools in India have been shut and directed the students to stay at home to prevent the spread of the deadly virus. The Indian government has also issued an advisory to schools to remain closed to safeguard the health of students.
Amid the deadly coronavirus crisis, many Indian edtech companies that provide online learning have come forward in chorus to offer free Live classes to provide uninterrupted classes to Indian students and to ensure learners’ education is not obstructed during this critical situation. Among them includes popular learning platforms such as BYJU’s, Unacademy, Vedantu, ViDU, Toppr, Impartus, Lido Learning, etc.
To tackle the situation and help school-going children during the exam time, edtech unicorn BYJU’S has announced it will be providing free access to its educational app to students till the end of April 2020. Under this initiative, all K-12 students can download and access BYJU’S learning content for free. While students from classes 1 to 3 can access Math and English lessons, students from classes 4 to 12 can learn Math and Science concepts on the BYJU’S app without any charge. To access, register for free at BYJU'S.
Bengaluru-based Unacademy in a press release announced it will conduct close to 20,000 free live classes on its platform to ensure learners’ education is not obstructed amidst the coronavirus crisis. The company said these live classes will be available across exam categories like UPSC, banking, railways and many more. It further said Unacademy educators from across the nation will provide their time to this initiative and ensure the courses for various exams are on track and over 700 Live classes will be conducted per day. The effort is aimed at promoting the undefeatable spirit amongst learners and encouraging determination to crack their exams. To access Unacademy free Live classes, you can visit its website and register yourself there itself.
Gaurav Munjal, Co-founder and CEO, Unacademy, said in a press statement,
“We are bringing together our entire network of educators to conduct free Live classes for learners across the nation to help them crack their goals unobstructed. We want learners to utilize this time to take precautions against the coronavirus outbreak and learn from the comfort of their homes. We will support the education system in every way possible to weather the storm and provide these classes to each learner who wants to utilize Unacademy to study. If the situation persists beyond March, we will look at extending these free Live classes to April and May as well.”
LIVE and personalized learning platform Vedantu has also come forward joining hands with schools across cities to help provide uninterrupted classes to their students. Under this initiative, schools can use their own content and teachers, but deliver classes using content from Vedantu on its LIVE and personalized platform. Schools can also opt for end-to-end online tutorial through content and teachers delivering LIVE and personalized classes on Vedantu. Visit Vedantu to get free access to Live classes and all Vedantu content.
ViDU, another Bengaluru-based edtech startup, also come forward to extend its help in the growth of the country in this critical situation by offering free ViDU Live online classes and assessment solutions to schools through which schools can live stream their classes from school to home and help their students to succeed. The company is supporting schools to use the Code EDTECH3L to get 3 lakh waiver on product fees for assisted Sign-up on ViDU Platform and setting and starting up LIVE Classes and Mobile App.
To overcome this dreadful situation and to ensure students don't suffer, Schoolguru Eduserve, a leading Online Learning Services company has also offered FREE ACCESS to its Lurningo platform and app to all HEIs for the first three months.
Bengaluru based PlayAblo is also offering its award winning gamified assessment program for Primary schools (Maths & English Grammar) across the country FREE OF COST for the next 1 month. This offer for one month of free access is available to all the schools across India. Drop a note at schools@playablo.com and they will get you and your school and students setup in 24 hours.
Also, one of India’s largest English learning app - Enguru is providing 7 day free live classes to learners across the globe with the help of their Cambridge qualified trainers.
Millionlights is also rolling out a free cloud course for all universities and students who are at home because of Corona. The course starts on the 2nd of April.
Mumbai-based Toppr also stepped in to help students learn uninterrupted by offering its Live class services free for all students from classes 5 to 12. The company’s co-founder and CEO, Zishaan Hayath, has announced this on his official Twitter handle, saying,
“In view of the evolving situation around COVID-19 (Coronavirus) outbreak and given that some schools are shut and studies interrupted, we are making Toppr’s LIVE classes completely free for all students in 5th-12th classes.”
Impartus, another Bengaluru-based edtech startup that provides innovative video learning solutions, has earlier announced in a press release to offer its innovative Virtual Classroom designed for Live online learning completely free to all Indian schools and colleges, to ensure that students continue to have live and interactive access to teachers in the ongoing challenging times. Amit Mahensaria, co-founder and CEO of Impartus, said in its release statement,
“We care deeply for our student and teacher community. With exams around the corner, Impartus wishes to ensure that the education of each and every Indian student is continuing and unaffected in these challenging times. Hence, we will be offering a free access to our virtual classroom platform for Live classes to all the educational institutions and their teachers till March 31, 2020, and can be extended as per the need. This small effort is to contribute to the best of our capacity towards the Indian education system, a system which has made our startup where it is today.”
Recently, UNESCO announced that 13 countries have closed schools, disrupting the education of more than 290 million students, a record number it said, while nine other countries have implemented localized school closures. The organization estimates that, if these countries close schools nationwide, a further 180 million children will be prevented from attending school.
Declaring that disadvantaged children are the worst-hit by the emergency measures, UNESCO Director-General Audrey Azoulay said,
“While temporary school closures as a result of health and other crises are not new, unfortunately, the global scale and speed of the current educational disruption is unparalleled and, if prolonged, could threaten the right to education.”
Pandemic diseases don’t discriminate or care if you are just 10, 20 or 50, rich or poor. They go on to destroy the lives and happiness of people regardless of any boundary across the world. However, while coronavirus may continue to spread worldwide, education is not obedient to the virus. It has to be defeated in every situation. If the students cannot go to school, the school can certainly go to them. Long live, learners!
