These days, it is not surprising to see a large number of students requiring additional help to understand their course content. This extra mentoring might be in the form of private academies or tutors and many students don’t possess the financial means to use them. Lack of qualified teachers only exacerbates the issue and this trend is specially noticeable in rural areas. Students from these areas, particularly those who wish to study science subjects, are at a disadvantage when they compete at the university level. Access to good education is a basic right for every Pakistani and that is why it is heartening to see Maktab.pk.
It is a venture quite similar to Khan Academy but focused for the Pakistani market. By providing an online and self paced alternative, Maktab.pk is helping students from all over Pakistan with just an internet connection to get access to quality content. The best thing is that all content is in Urdu so there is no language barrier. Of course the technical terms would still be English but the explanations are in Urdu.
Right now, Maktab.pk is in phase 1 in which they are producing content videos for F.Sc students (Maths, Chemistry, Physics, Biology). They use books that are commonly used in classrooms but board specific content might come later when there are more resources available. After comprehensively covering F.Sc content (over 1100 videos already available), phase 2 kicks in and that includes producing videos for Matric students.
The eventual long term goals for Maktab.pk are to provide educational videos for every level from first grade to bachelors. The focus will be on offering content for scientific subjects.
The venture is off to a great start. Within a year of being established, they have built up a user base that consists of more than 100,000 people. They also got the runners up award in E-Learning category at the recent Pasha ICT awards 2014 so it is good to see their efforts being appreciated. We think Maktab.pk is a superb initiative that will help students all across Pakistan overcome any handicaps to a good education and we wish them the best of luck for the future.
Link: http://www.maktab.pk/
