A group of institutional investorsand a start-up firm run by country's top B-school IIM-A alumni, Educational Initiatives Pvt Ltd (EI), have entered into a strategic tie-up for a project on school education and assessment. A consortium of investors including Footprint Ventures, Novak Biddle Venture Partners, the ICICI Bank-supported IFMR Trust and industrialist Gautam Thapar have joined hands with EI to fund the latter's project.
EI's ASSET test, which is expected to be taken by hundreds of thousands of students in India this year, is the company's core initiative. EI executes large scale assessment and research projects with contracts from agencies such as the World Bank, UNICEF, and the Michael and Susan Dell Foundation.
“In the schools, efforts to shift from rote to learning by understanding makes for a great starting point,” said EI's managing director, Sridhar Rajagopalan.
The test, conducted for classes 3-10, assesses students' comprehension in mathematics, science and English; Hindi and social studies are optional tests.
The company provides detailed diagnostic feedback to each student, class, teacher and school, highlighting specific areas of strengths, weaknesses, learning misconceptions and also benchmarks performance against a national average.
“We are bullish on the overall education sector, and the company's leadership position in the assessment category is a truly unique investment opportunity,” said Josh Bornstein, Executive Director, Footprint Ventures.
Source: Sify