EZ Vidya: Designing a Curriculum to cater the 21st Century Education

The world today is different than the world 30 years ago. With the advent of the Internet and a surge of new information technologies, a notable gap has formed between the young population that has grown up surrounded by this technology, and their often less tech savvy parents who have either been forced to adapt to the contemporary tech-driven lifestyle, or have been left to obstinately remain luddites to this day. This shift has led to a youth population that looks only vaguely like the youth of the past, and with change comes a need for a new kind of education to adhere to the needs of this new breed of children. The education system, however, has generally lagged in adapting to the evolving culture, a testament to either a lack of urgency or, perhaps, a nostalgic adult population clinging desperately to tradition.

We recently connected with EZ Vidya, an education research and innovation company that is addressing this very issue. Chitra Ravi, Founder and CEO of EZ Vidya, spoke with us about her perspective on the growing need for educational reform and what EZ Vidya is doing to address it.

In this new world of today, the ubiquity of technology means that kids have increasingly easy and fast access to information. They can no longer be expected to learn effectively within the pedagogical walls of the past. Chitra provided us with an anecdote to illustrate this point.

“There was a lesson that had a picture of an owl, and the child had three blanks to fill the name of the animal,” she recounted. “So while kids of grade one were writing one kid gets up and says ‘Mam, an owl is a nocturnal animal,’ and another kid gets up and gives names of other nocturnal animals. That’s the kind of knowledge and exposure kids have today. And I wondered if the teachers themselves had to remember what a nocturnal animal is.”

To facilitate the transition to a new way of approaching education, EZ Vidya has created Chrysalis, a school curriculum based on 2,70,000 hours of pedagogical research and designed to provide a holistic, twenty-first century education.

The curriculum is based on four methods of thinking that EZ Vidya defines to provide a holistic education, based not just on subject learning but also on human development. “Look Deep” emphasizes critical thinking and focuses on logic based questions. “Look Within” emphasizes internal reflection, helping students understand their own differences, interests, and learning processes. “Look Beyond” encourages creativity and out of the box thinking. Finally, “Look Around” sensitizes students to the physical world, helping them connect what they learn with their own lives and the world around them.

These four methods of thinking are designed around the core philosophy of EZ Vidya as inscribed beneath the company logo: to “let the child blossom.” Inherent in the EZ Vidya approach is the belief that, as expressed resolutely by Chitra, education should incorporate an aspect of self-discovery.

“We have to remind ourselves that our role as adults and teachers is not to be sources of information, but… to facilitate, give opportunities for expression, for thinking, because the role is changing,” Chitra explained. “It’s not easy for teachers to shift roles, so that is where EZ Vidya comes in. We give teachers the curriculum and training for the future.”

Yet those at EZ Vidya, too, understand that their work is far from easy, and that they have taken on a large, systemic problem. In fact, Chitra joked, “Nothing is easy in EZ Vidya except the first two letters in our organization’s name.”

Nonetheless, their outreach proves that they have made significant strides in improving education in India. With a staff of around 130 people, EZ Vidya currently reaches close to 700 schools across the country. Their current curriculum serves Grades 1-5, but they hope to expand up to Grade 8 in the future. Additionally, they have recently received the mBillionth Award South Asia 2012 for mobile and telecom innovation for their Bridge-it India mobile application, a product built in collaboration with NOKIA to provide education services via mobile device.

Although their goals are set high, the social importance of their work motivates those at EZ Vidya to pursue them rigorously. So to other social entrepreneurs who find themselves daunted by the magnitude of the issues they have taken on, Chitra gives some advice. “You need both patience and impatience,” she explained. “Patience because you should know you’re in it for the long term, but impatience because you shouldn’t get complacent, because then these things will never change.”

Want to bring EZ Vidya to a school near you?