Shiksha Co-Pilot - Government Of Karnataka's New Initiative To Support Teachers

As per UNESCO’s 2020 Survey, the Indian primary education system is working on a 1:33 teacher-student ratio, with the world average being 23. This alarming statistic brings to light the emerging necessity to take proactive steps to ensure better pedagogical and teaching solutions in Indian schools. Coming up as an active participant in making the education system better, the Karnataka government has launched a research project called “Shiksha Co-pilot”. 

The Shiksha Co-pilot project by VeLLM, a Microsoft Research India’s platform in partnership with the Shikshana Foundation is an efficient generative AI digital assistant to help the teachers with drafting lesson plans, interactive activities, etc. It is a tool to help not only teachers but farmers, and small-business owners as well. Let’s understand more features of this futuristic digital assistance project for transforming the education system in India.

What is Shiksha Co-Pilot (Generative AI Digital Assistant)?

Shiksha Co-pilot is a generative AI-based assistant, primarily built to cater to the pedagogical needs of the teachers in the government schools of Karnataka. The main aim of launching such a project is to elevate the learning outcomes of students by incorporating interactive quizzes and activities in their learning plan, and also to strengthen the teacher’s approach while creating personalized learning resources for students of different levels. 

Also Read: The importance of cybercrime awareness for students.

Features of Shiksha Co-Pilot (Generative AI Digital Assistant):

1. It creates diverse learning plans, modules, and overall experiences. 

2. It helps create topic/lesson-based interactive quizzes, videos, assessments, and activities.

3. Developing curriculum-based learning experiences for students.

4. Making the school/education environment more holistic and engaging.

5. The project focuses on classes 5 to 10 currently, across subjects like Maths, Science, English, and Social Science, in both Kannada and English language.

6. It allows teachers to develop student-focused personalized teaching and learning content based on the 5Es model, i.e., Engage, Explore, Explain, Elaborate, and Elevate.

7. This generative AI-based digital assistant not only ensures improved learning for students but also leads to continuous learning for teachers as well. 

8. It has 2 chatbot features for teachers to ask questions from the AI engine on specific topics from the syllabus and another that acts like a generative educational assistant to the teachers.

The pilot project will focus on the first 1000 teachers from both urban and rural government schools in Karnataka. 

The Shiksha Pilot is a proactive step that will not only elevate the learning experience of students across the country but also put Generative AI to good use, in the form of digital assistant, thereby bridging the gap between pupils and teachers, while also eliminating the additional post-work hours stress that many teachers face to go extra mile for providing students with comprehensive education. 

To conclude, in the coming years, we wish to observe the positive outcomes of this project and its significant expansion in schools across other states of the country as well. Certainly, it's an initiative putting AI to good use!