What are your memories of school and college days? For childhood friends Atharva Puranik and Pranay Chauhan, now in their twenties, one of their fondest memories is the last-minute revision before a major exam.
âI still remember how Prannoy helped me make a yearâs syllabus in those last few minutes. And the best part is that it was always my favorite way of learning,â shares a melancholic Atharva in a call. Uttam India.
Growing up as close friends in Madhya Pradesh, she and Prannoy shared many fond old memories, mostly related to the classroom. So when it came time to go their separate ways in 2019 to pursue their engineering degrees â Prannoy Mumbai and Atharva Chennai â the friends said goodbye with heavy hearts.
What Atharva remembers most is his friendâs tips and tricks before exams. Perhaps thatâs why Boysâ Enterprise Reading reminds us of exactly this kind of teaching. The YouTube channel they launched in March 2022 enables students across India to access notes, lectures, study tips and more in an effort to help them remember things during exams.
A new way of learning
The friends were pursuing first-year B.Tech degrees when Atharva decided it wasnât his cup of tea. âOne thought that has always occurred to me in my school life is that even though there are so many educational institutions in India, there are very few teachers who understand the âspiritâ of the students. Today, there has been development in many areas, but it continues to be a problem. I always felt that students need to learn. Should be taught in a curious way. As an elder brother would teach you. But I did not feel this enthusiasm and I left BTech.
It was at the same time that Atharva reconnected with Prannoy, and coincidentally, when the Covid pandemic arrived in 2020, taking a toll on many sectors, including education.
Says Prannoy, âThe idea was always to help students in some way. This was a shared passion between Atharva and I, but the Covid pandemic accelerated the need to move it beyond our capacity. We both pitched in Rs 2,000 and bought a domain on the internet as the first step in our plan.
He laughs, recalling that when it came to naming the platform, they decided to go with the most commented Desi Children are heard to use it at home.
âReadâ â but understand what you are reading
âWe wanted to make sure that students were learning the concepts in a language they were comfortable with, to understand better,â says Prannoy. He attributes his success to starting at the right time. âAt the height of the pandemic, students were confused about the way forward. As teachers grappled with new software for the move to distance learning, students were also adjusting to the new patterns.â
The boys started discussing how the quality of the material provided to the students was not good. The responsibility of teaching children what they cannot understand in online classes is also now added to the parents.
âSo we thought of starting this website which will be a repository of educational material available for free for students to access. The Internet has a wealth of content on every subject imaginable. But when you were a student, what did you like best? Handwritten notes.â
Prannoy says, this was the formal initiation of learning.
The two guys would manage the entire platform themselves in the early days â writing notes from concepts available on the web, scanning and uploading them to a YouTube channel, and recording fun videos that break down difficult concepts into simple ones. to understand
âThe lectures we record will be interactive, where Prannoy and I will play the role of two friends explaining a chemistry concept or a teacher and a student understanding a physics equation. These tutorials have gone viral,â says Atharva.
Creative use of their knowledge
After starting with class 8, 9 and 10, the boys soon moved on to class 11 and 12.
âWhen we started it was a completely free module system,â says Prannoy, adding that the idea was to put everything on YouTube and the website. Whatever they earned through advertisements and donations, they spent on curating educational materials like curated booklets with NCERT subjects explained simply.
âBooks are not just general information, but we also have memes that help students understand key concepts. From the beginning, we are never going to be teachers, but those last-minute friends who help us in our school life,â shared Prannoy.
Recently, they have started charging Rs 3499 for a package that caters to classes 9 and 10. They also offer a crash course for Rs 800 which covers all the important concepts within a few weeks. The YouTube channels they launched under Padhle â Just Padhle, Padhle Tenthies, Padhle 11th 12th â have a cumulative subscriber base of 1.5 million, while over 10,000 students have enrolled in their sessions.
During weekly Zoom sessions, the boys interact with students who access YouTube content for free and students who subscribe to paid modules.
They do it to understand their testimonials, they say.
Kumar, whose son Aditya is in Class 10 and finds Padle a great source of learning, says, âI was worried about Adityaâs studies as I could not help him due to my work responsibilities. But he has been watching Padhe videos for quite some time, and I have found that Pranay and Atharvaâs approach to teaching, as well as their subject management, is quite unique.â
He adds that Aditya, who aspires to take the JEE exam, also submits the study notes for it.
Student Sania Chauhan, who heard about reading through a friend, said it was easy because of her class 10 notes. She credits the boysâ âconcise and clear approach to subject teachingâ as the reason for her success.
##QA-TP1##
The good work by the boys does not stop with the Padhle effort. From the earnings of the YouTube channel and fees paid by the students, the brothers donate to âchildren with special needsâ in Indore.
Explaining the reason, Atharva says, âWe saw that there were not many facilities here and decided to donate them even if they were in need. Till date, our donations have been used to install water coolers, CCTV cameras, fans, lights etc. We provide our paid content free to the students of this center.
Today, as students across the country tune in to the learning videos, Atharva and Prannoy feel the satisfaction of paying attention to this new way of teaching technical subjects. Their efforts have paid off.
Edited by Divya Sethu