How School Edtech Startup LEAD Is Disrupting Classrooms For Better Learning Outcomes

India has gone digital with a bang during the pandemic, and many schools have followed suit by holding online classes. More importantly, there are scores of edtech platforms and learning apps, hosting live and recorded lessons and claiming student-centric pedagogy. But these are often considered a top-heavy affair as hundreds of Indian edtech companies focus on test prep, job exams and upskilling instead of strengthening the basics by bringing technology into school education.

Broadly speaking, new-age ‘edtech’ is supplementary in nature and rarely aims to overhaul a learning system. In contrast, Mumbai-based LEAD has developed a smart and scalable learning framework for an in-school environment to improve general learning outcomes.  

Set up in 2012 by the husband-wife duo Sumeet Mehta and Smita Deorah, LEAD has introduced a tech-driven collaborative system that can be easily integrated with mainstream learning practices. The company serves multiple stakeholders — students, teachers, parents and schools — as it aims to transform the way assessments are done, lessons are taught and educators keep up with the latest developments in pedagogy.

LEAD reached the first milestone when it opened its brick-and-mortar school in Areri village, 35 km from Ahmedabad, with 14 students. After spending five years improving the entire system, it shifted to a B2B SaaS platform in 2017 to ensure widespread reach within a short span and proper implementation.  

Watch Sumeet Mehta, Cofounder And CEO Of LEAD, Talk About The School Edtech Landscape And How LEAD’s Model Is Changing Teaching-Learning Outcomes For Affordable Private Schools.

Based on the NCERT syllabus, LEAD offers its proprietary learning modules on six subjects — English, Mathematics, Coding, Social Science, Environmental Studies and Hindi. Each topic/concept covered under these subjects offers algorithm-based learning indicators for assessing learning gaps so that lessons can be reoriented to ensure desired performance.

As to how academic excellence is achieved at scale, Mehta says when LEAD onboards a school, around 29% of the students are above 70% mastery of their level-specific courses. But within 6-12 months, more than 70% of the students reach that level.

The company claims it has already partnered with more than 2,000 schools in Tier 2 locations and beyond and helped more than 800K students and 10K teachers leverage an ‘improved’ and ‘connected’ classroom learning ecosystem.

According to LEAD, the total addressable market size of school edtech is around $15 Bn, which underlines a big requirement for enterprise edtech players to reshape classroom teaching and enable better learning outcomes at the grassroots.