Google partners with CBSE to digitise classrooms, train 1 million teachers

At its Google For India event, the tech major had announced a new partnership with Central Board of Secondary Education (CBSE), Skill Education and Training, for driving education in the country. The company also plans to partner with CBSE to digitise classrooms across the country.

Sapna Chadha, Senior Country Marketing Director (India and Southeast Asia) at Google, while speaking at the Google for India event, said that the search giant would train over 1 million teachers in 22,000 schools across India by the end of 2020.  Chadha added that this would deliver blended learning that combines the classroom approach with online learning, using free tools like G Suite for Education, Google Classroom, and YouTube.

Google, in a blog post, said, "When the pandemic restricted mobility across the country, we enabled free access to the premium features of tools like Google Meet, as well as sharing free education tools like Google Classroom. The results have been heartening, including at schools like Podar, Kendriya Vidyalaya, Nehru World and GD Goenka."

Additionally, to support underserved low-income communities, the tech giant has also announced a new Google.org grant of $1 million to Kaivalya Education Foundation (KEF) as part of the Global Distance Learning Fund. "Recognising that it's more important than ever to ensure education is inclusive, especially for lower-income households, we are also announcing a new grant of $1 million to Kaivalya Education Foundation (KEF) from Google.org, Google's philanthropic arm, as part of the Global Distance Learning Fund," the company stated.

"Using these funds, KEF will work with the Central Square Foundation and TeacherApp to train 700,000 teachers to deliver virtual education for vulnerable students so that they can continue learning at home. Where families don't have access to the internet or a smartphone, other channels including TV and radio will be used to reach these children," it added.

Google Classroom is an internet-based service designed by Google for creating, sharing and grading assignments at schools. Google's G-Suite is a set of tools which offers collaboration and storage of data on Google's cloud network. Tools like Gmail, Google Meet, Calendar, Docs, Sheets and Slides are part of the suite.

Ramesh Pokhriyal Nishank, union Minister of Human Resource Development, while speaking at the event, explained that free-of-cost tools offered by Google in partnership with CBSE would be beneficial for teachers across schools.

Nishank also added that Google must take efforts to ensure that content services and tools are available across the 22 Indian languages so that maximum number of students across the country benefit.

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