sumeet mehta cofounder and ceo of lead school an integrated tech platform for student learning dreams to take india to the top 10 programme for international student assessment pisa nations during his lifetime having experienced firsthand the gap in the quality of learning that exists between small towns and big cities mehta an iim ahmedabad alumnus and former pg singapore executive is working towards bridging this inequity he talks to toi about the challenges thrown up by covid19 and the probable solutions for teachers and students alike excerptswhen was lead school started and how many students are currently studying in your online schoollead school began its journey in 2012 and as on date supports 830 schools across 15 districts in india lead school is running the largest online school in india with over 32 lakh students enrolled in the lead schoolhome program tell us more about the lead schoolhome initiative it is comparable in all aspects to regular schools except that it is online we follow a structured curriculum provide multi modal learning assessments and remedial classes students are able to access the entire online school through the parent app the program is also available to individual students who can register under open schooling this additional facility has been added because there are many students in remote areas who are unable to get the required support from their schools in continuing with their education during the lockdown as a part of the initiative we have also trained 11000 teachers to offer online schooling effectively how is the program different from others most schools have adopted stop gap solutions to get students to attend online sessions however neither the schools nor their teachers are equipped for online schooling this has resulted in a huge variation in the quality of learning being delivered online today lead has helped schools to not only leverage technology to offer online learning but has also trained teachers to deliver online lectures and engage students through multi modal teaching methodologieshow can online learning be as effectivemost people thought of online classes as a poor substitute for offline schools but our program has proved that online schooling can be as effective as offline schooling if integrated well there are four factors that need to be accounted for first there has to be a structure and sequence to the learning something that is possible only if you are following a curriculum and lesson plan second learning needs to be multimodal and age appropriate since the possibility of the student losing interest in a 40minute online lecture is very high teachers have to show videos slide decks and use demonstrations to engage students they have to get them to participate through activities or worksheets third online classes should be able to assess learning online tests and quizzes are helpful in this regard teachers cannot just deliver a lecture and not check whether students have understood lastly online classes need to have a remedial loop one needs to have a solution