Sushil Bhattarai, President at Kull techno lab and Research center
The theme of the Interview: Content and Technology should reach for free in the hands of students)
Is kulllab related to education sector or industrial sector?
It should be evaluated that Kull is related to both of the sectors.
We function to increase the use of technology in the educational field. Overall, Kull is the engineer of the Campaign focused on digitizing the education system of Nepal. The core objective of the company is to decrease the book load in bags of students as we used to have in our times. Now, mobile phones have reached in hand of every individual, be it from a city or village, but those materials have not been used for education.
Heavy books can be joyfully replaced by one tablet where education can be enjoyed with the use of technology. Our primary job is to decrease digital division by increasing the use of technology. Kull has been working on e-curriculum based on Educational syllabus as set by Ministry of Education, Nepal.
How natural is e- a curriculum in the context of Nepal?
Mobile was a matter of astonishment ten years back. Who had thought that the use of a mobile phone would increase at this rate ten years ago? That has been made possible today. Within a few years, the internet will reach in hand of every individual as the mobile phone did.
When the mobile phone along with internet reach every individual no work is impossible. It takes time to remove the habit of carrying a heavy load in the bag but that period will not be much longer. Implementation of e-curriculum is a challenge because of Nepal’s geographical diversity, regulation, educational quality, and other such factors.
There is no alternative other than to face the challenge, recognizing the need in today’s world.
They have around 1 lakh student as well as teacher user. There are 60-70 thousand users from 16-17 different countries. Our software is used in countries like the United States, India, Bhutan, Philippines, Sudan, Myanmar. Demand is rapidly increasing in these countries!
Is your curriculum governmental “Syllabus”?
The curriculum we have included in our software is the one approved by the government of Nepal. Till date, it has been used as helping material of students. Approval is not required for online documents. After approval, our course is the digital course itself. Within this year it will receive legal recognition.
Preparation of curriculum from grade 7 to 12 has been completed. Along with this work has been done in engineering studies in faculty such as electronic, mechanical as well as civil. For Management, bachelor’s and master’s work has reached the final stage. Within five years we will digitize the entire course of Nepal and make it available online. We could make eight courses within two years means within five years full sequence can be scanned.
The Ministry of Education has also adopted a policy to convert education from digitization. If the administration keeps improving, it is possible to digitize both in public and private school within 5 to 10 years.
Are you targeted private group school or governmental?
Both the schools are our targeted group. So far, we have not seen excitement toward our work from government area.
It’s not that we have not outreached for government schools. We have done much to digitize 5 number area of Kathmandu. Among 17 schools five has completely been digitized. In the first phase, we hand out our curriculum to the private sector.
We have distributed DVD for free in government schools. Our campaign is to make software free. The student should get content and technology for free after which he can learn a lot from it. Business should not be done on content and technology.
