Google announced a partnership with the Central Board of Secondary Education to train over one million teachers in 22,000 schools across India by the end of 2020. The training will be given to deliver blended learning that combines the classroom approach with online learning, using free tools like G Suite for Education, Google Classroom, and YouTube.
Google’s investment plan includes a renewed “focus on bringing more high-quality low-cost smartphones to enable Internet access”.
Ahead of the announcement, Prime Minister Narendra Modi held a video conference with Google’s CEO Sundar Pichai and other senior executives of the company. “This morning, had an extremely fruitful interaction with Sundar Pichai. We spoke on a wide range of subjects, particularly leveraging the power of technology to transform the lives of India’s farmers youngsters and entrepreneurs. During our interaction, Sundar Pichai and I spoke about the new work culture that is emerging in the times of Covid-19. We discussed the challenges the global pandemic has brought to areas such as sports. We also talked about the importance of data security and cyber safety”, Modi tweeted.
Google said its $10-billion fund will focus on areas such as enabling affordable access to the internet and to information for every Indian in their own language: building new products and services in segments like consumer tech, education health and culture empowering businesses especially small and medium businesses to transform digitally leveraging technology and artificial intelligence for digital literacy.
Google isn’t the only tech company that is partnering with CBSE. Facebook also recently announced a partnership with CBSE to launch a certified curriculum on online well-being and digital safety, as well as augmented reality (AR) for students and educators in India.
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