Meta (formerly Facebook) will expand its partnership with the Central Board of Secondary Education (CBSE) to provide a curriculum on digital safety and online well-being, as well as augmented reality (AR), to over 10 million students and 1 million educators in the country over the next three years.
Furthermore, in accordance with the government’s vision of universalizing education, Meta and CBSE will democratise the high school curriculum by providing students with online access to quality educational content via modules that will be made available on CBSE’s website.
Meta founder and CEO Mark Zuckerberg made the announcement at Meta’s Fuel for India 2021 event.
“I’m really excited about this partnership, and I think it’s a huge opportunity to (invest in) this entrepreneurial spirit and bring some of these tools and training to the education system here in India,” he said.
The first phase of Facebook for Education was launched in June 2020, with the goal of preparing students and teachers for the future of work and creating a safe online environment and learning experience.
Over 500,000 students expressed an interest in digital safety and online well-being, and over 14,000 teachers applied for augmented reality training.
The collaboration will also aim to provide educators with the cutting-edge tools and skills they need to develop Generation Z and Generation Alpha students into responsible digital citizens.
In accordance with the National Education Policy (NEP) 2020, Meta and CBSE will collaborate on content curation and curriculum development incorporating immersive technologies, AR, and Virtual Reality (VR) that are relevant for the evolving digital landscape by introducing these as skill subjects for students.
By incorporating augmented reality experiences into the curriculum, students will be able to collaborate more actively and create using future technologies. Immersive education will also allow students with various learning challenges and limited access to lab resources to learn in an engaging way.
Through its community skill centres, CBSE will aim to empower students in underserved areas of India by making these new age skills available to the youth and assisting them in becoming creators in the digital economy through equitable access to resources.
