Preparation for competitive exams is a stressful task for many students. The right guidance and support of expert academicians can make all the difference in these students’ life. However, in recent times, due to the spread of COVID-19, online learning has become the only solution for students to prepare for such difficult exams. This is where M Learning steps in to guide students from the start to the end of the examination process, with video lectures and e-study materials that are designed for the preparation of entrance exam viz IIT-JEE, NEET and NTSE for the Students of class 8th, 9th, 10th, 11th and 12th (CBSE, ICSE or any other state board). With these high-quality video lectures from the faculties involved in teaching for IIT-JEE and NEET for about 10 -15 years, M Learning eliminates the need to join any physical coaching institute.
“In the last 18 months of the pandemic era, most of the industries slowed down. EdTech is one among few with growth. It grew by almost 100-200 times,” shares Sundeep Gupta, Founder Director, M Learning. During the pandemic from Apr 2020 till August 2021, M Learning added 20000 subscribers who watched 3 Hours 11 minutes per day on an average on its mobile App. On YouTube, M Learning added 70000 subscribers with 7 million views and 371500 Hours of watch time. “For us at M Learning, education is not fun. It’s a serious business. Amazingly, many M-Learning App users are teachers who are teaching into some coaching classes or schools. If we talk about students, most of them are in the top 2% category in their class,” says Gupta.
Engagement for online classes has not been an issue for M Learning, which has a large, enthusiastic userbase. Gupta adds, “Our learners are self-motivated, self-devoted, and self-dedicated. We simply need to serve content-rich stuff.” The institute records video lectures of the professors with deep knowledge and experience of the subject and target examination in a real classroom environment. With minimum editing, these masterclasses are then published on M Learning App. Gupta says that such lectures are heavily admired, used and referred to by their limited category of users, who are none other than the country’s top intellectuals.
Unlike many online learning providers, M Learning does not have any marketing or sales department. The institute is growing organically and by referrals. “We have an Academic and a small Tech Team. The academic team is busy with lectures and recording. They are happy with the feedback and responses of the users. While the Tech team is busy with video editing, publishing content and doing app development,” explains Gupta. With the quality of content and effectiveness of teaching, M Learning’s userbase has grown 200 times, and Gupta is confident that the trend will continue.
Bringing Decades of Classroom Legacy to Online Learning
“I have been tutoring since 1986 when I was just at 13 years of age. Then, I launched Gupta Tutorials in the year 1994, which is exclusively for IIT JEE in small-town Ujjain,” Recounts Gupta. In 1997, Gupta completed his B Tech from IIT Kharagpur and expanded Gupta Tutorials with a new centre at Indore. It was just the beginning of its long years of existence in the coaching sector. At Gupta Tutorials, the student strength kept growing year on year, teaching about 1500 students sitting in 18 classrooms in seven towns of Madya Pradesh.
Gupta says, “Students needed to travel down to our centre and classroom. This was a big limitation. We intended to reach out to students at their homes. This is how the Idea of mobile learning was generated.” Gupta had an urge to grow beyond the constraint of resources and geography. In 2005 -2008, Gupta and his team developed a virtual teaching platform by the use of video conferencing devices, dedicated point to point internet leased lines, optical fibre connections and microwave towers. He adds, “In 2010, Tablet PCs were growing popular. We were already having most of the course of IIT JEE recorded with us. We were all set to launch M Learning in August 2011.”
Today, M Learning is ready to rollout its live online classes where students can connect with educators and interact through audio and video call features in its Forum App. While the institute is planning to develop Live one-to-one tutoring to strengthen its online presence, Gupta believes that he can reach out to every nook and cranny of the country. “We really do not need to bother with urban or semi-urban populations, as most of the rural population have access to the internet. The audience is already there. We just need to understand what the masses want to see. We just need to produce and publish. They will discover you and connect you. If it is worthy. People are ready to pay,” concludes Gupta.