Technology Enabling Next Level of Education: eShiksha

An Education Technology startup- eShiksha focused on providing services to the education Institutes over the SAAS model to more than 500+ Institutes today. In an exclusive interview with Faiz Askari of SMEStreet, Pravin Sharma, CEO & Founder of eShiksha explained an overview of Indian education market and role of technology in the transformation of this sector.

Faiz Askari: Please explain the business model of eShiksha?

Pravin Sharma: eShiksa provides various services including Shiksa Pay which powers the cashless fee collection to the Institutes allowing the parents to pay fee right from their fingertips, eTracki which helps the Institute to track the buses and the parents can track the child, e-commerce module for online sales for the Institute,  Education Service portal which takes care of the entire ecosystem of the education Institution, Digitor which is a learning management system for the Institute and many more.

eShiksha provides the parent/student a single window for viewing various reports on the academic front and also paying all kinds of school/college fees online. The Parent/student can pay fees and make other payments online in a secure and convenient manner.

eShiksa provides Institutes with powerful features for any type of private and public academic institutions. eShiksa is designed for ease of use and flexibility.

eShiksa efficiently tracks the details of students past, future and current fee billing/payment collection receipts. eShiksa fees management solution makes working smoothly while saving about 90% of manual work, resulting in a hassle-free and paperless Management.

Key Features of Education Service Portal

• Single Platform for Education Institute for managing the entire ecosystem of the Institute from anywhere anytime.  Comes in two variants to suit different needs of the Institute.
• The Institute gets their own branded app for Students, Parents and Teachers.
• Pay as you go model which makes eShiksa a cost-effective solution for the Education Institute.
• Various Payment Solution Pre Integrated which requires no paperwork and integration required with Payment providers.
• Multiple Campus management through a single window.
• Students/Parents can make Online Fees Payments.
• A complete update on child's performance, attendance and fee payments to Parents.
• User-friendly interface requiring minimal learning and IT skills.
• Child tracking through our product eTracki for ensuring child security.

eShiksa is today working in India, Nepal, Maldives, Mauritius and will be launched in 3 more countries in the next few months including Malaysia.

We are working on a service provider model and pay as you go pricing model for the Institutes

FA: How did the idea of starting your own enterprise come? What inspired you?

PS: Entrepreneurship was always the goal from the day one when I started working around 16 years back. While working in the payment industry the idea of a one stop solution for the education Institute came into mind and the idea for eShiksa came from those interactions with Education Institutes to provide cost effective and digital solution/services.

My father has been the biggest motivator to me, he has always backed me with simplest of the words and always inspired for doing quality work and being responsible which is the biggest essence for entrepreneurship.

FA: What is the biggest challenge you faced as an entrepreneur while establishing your startup?

PS: The biggest problem we faced in the initial days was the outlook of the Education Institutes towards adaptability to technology and digital solutions. Things have also changed in the last 3 years since initiatives like Digital India which are creating awareness among the clients to go for digital services.

FA: What are your expansion plans in near future?

PS: We are targeting to onboard 1500+ Institutes and a User base of 1 million plus in the next 12-18 months with more value-added services to the users.  

FA: Who all are your market competitors? 

PS: There are players in the market who are offering the solutions including fedena, NIIT, TCS etc.

FA: What are the key attractions of eShiksa?

PS: We plan to be an Online Platform for On-demand services in Education and we plan to launch more services at the student/parent end for generating revenue from the end user. We want to be a service provider offering a wide range of services to the Institute which is cost effective and innovative which resolves real problems of an institution and the model of working as a service provider to the education Institution is the key attraction of eShiksa rather working as a software vendor.