Chennai: When her daughter was in the second grade and scored miserably in exams, it took a while for Padmaja Priyadarshini to figure the lack of course streamlining and following of the proper syllabus by teachers of grades 2 to 8 in CBSE schools.
"My daughter, Bharathi, scored a measly 40 per cent in her exams. I couldn't figure out the problem, but realised that though her teachers did not teach from the course books, a lot of objective-type questions were asked in the exams from the textbooks. By the time she was in the third grade, I had translated the content of each chapter into questions with their single-word answers for her. It worked!" she said.
To make learning easier for kids from classes 2 to 8, who get surprised to see questions that haven't been taught in the classroom, she started a paid online portal, Thirdguru.com, that provides objective-type questions answers, prepared chapter wise and following each line of the CBSE textbooks.
Working with one school in Nungambakkam, she has been helping a number of students and parents, by making subject learning easier. The portal that was made public, for free, in 2015, saw a good response from students and parents. In 2016, Priyadarshini attached a subscription fee for accessing the site for a using a username and password.
"It is a very nominal fee - Rs 500 for second grade and Rs 2,000 for eight grade syllabus - with all subjects covered under the fee for four months," she said. She added that her time was the only investment she put into setting the portal up and that with a little funding, she plans to expand the portal soon with help from other schools.
"Parents either don't find the time, or energy, or the knowledge to teach their kids. I have notes from each subject in the form of these question answers, which would be easy for kids to learn," she said.
"Right now, I am providing the questions and answers, but I am looking at enhancing the portal to evaluate questions online, making the kids learn the subjects online," she said
