Although a growing number of educationists and educators tend to endorse new pedagogies such as child-centric and joyful learning, learning through comprehe-nsion etc, most of them restrict themselves to paying lip service to new, outcomes driven pedagogies. From this crowd exclude Saurabh Saxena, director of the Mumbai-based Axiom Education Pvt. Ltd, an innovative education content and pedagogies development company which he co-founded with his former IIT-Bombay batch mates Rohit Jain and Kunal Sharma in 2007. Promoted and funded by the Gujarat-based Bilakhia Group — a respected name in the printing inks and crop sciences businesses — Axiom Education has set itself the objective of developing and marketing innovative education products and systems distinguished by child-centricity and scalability.
“Our broad objective is betterment of K-12 education by improving teaching-learning outcomes. To this end, we aim to develop learning products and systems that make education a stimulating and joyful experience for teachers and students,” says Saxena, an alumnus of IIT-B who acquired valuable experience in intellectual property law (Nishith Desai Associates, 2004-05) and business management (Halliburton, Singapore, 2005-06) prior to signing up with the Bilakhia group in 2007.
Evidently, Saxena and his co-promoters are dead serious about developing a slew of innovative teaching-learning products which will be marketed under the brand name Iken. In 30 months the company has invested Rs.50 crore in R&D (research and development), and its 200-strong research team based in Mumbai has rolled out several learning products/ systems, including Iken Class — teacher-centric technology aided classroom solutions; Iken Library — a student-centric and self-learning audio-visual content repository; Iken Joy — do-it-yourself kits and board games; and Iken Books — self-learning comic books, textbooks-cum-workbooks, among others.
“Thus far all these products have been thoroughly test-marketed within school, parent and child communities countrywide. The feedback is excellent and recently we have introduced them into receptive markets. We believe we can chalk up revenues of Rs.200 crore in three years time,” says Saxena.
Such optimism is based on Axiom Education’s belief that Indian education is about to experience a paradigm shift from rote learning to real learning through comprehension. “Indian students have had very limited exposure to the global knowledge revolution which combines entertainment with education to stimulate learning. We are focused on developing products and learning systems which enable students to self-learn and explore concepts with a lot of excitement beforehand, to relate better with subjects being taught in the classroom. And given the excellent response which our products such as Iken Books, Iken Joy and Iken Library have received from institutions, parents and students, we believe we can bring the experience of simple and fun-filled learning to millions of children in India and even abroad. We are already in talks with retail powerhouses of India to establish reach and connect. For schools we have come up with innovative initiatives and delivery models that will really excite them,” says Saxena.
Wind in your sails!
DilipThakore (Bangalore)