How Futuring moved its JAM, JRF and NET coaching online before the lockdown

Futuring coaches students for the JRF/NET and JAM entrance examinations, across a stretch of Kerala that runs from Thrissur to Kannur and covers five districts. Its founder, Mr. Shejith Edathil, taught in person, which meant travelling the length of that stretch every week while students travelled between districts to attend. Edumia put the programme online: live classes, recorded lectures, e-books and assignments on one platform, with an admissions portal beside it. By the time the lockdown came, the institute had been teaching online for months and, by its own account, did not lose a day.

This is the account Edumia published of that project. The details and figures below are from it, and nothing has been added.

What Futuring was before

Mr. Shejith Edathil started Futuring to coach aspirants of the JRF/NET and JAM entrance examinations. The institute offered courses to second-year and third-year students, and ran a separate batch for repeaters. Within seven years of starting, the institute's own record listed 23 students selected to IISER, 44 to IIT, and 39 in JRF/NET GATE. That is a record built on teaching, not on premises.

The problem was travel, not demand

The teaching worked and the logistics did not. The founder travelled through the week from Thrissur to Kannur, covering five districts, in order to teach. Students travelled from one district to another to attend. Futuring also partnered with colleges to deliver coaching on their premises, and each college had allocated its own timing, which was difficult to hold together.

Two consequences followed. The first was time: a large fraction of the founder's week went into travel, leaving little room for preparation or for the other projects he wanted to build. The second was capacity. Classes were held in an offline setup with limited seating, so only so many students could attend a session — and the institute did not want to restrict its classes or turn aspirants away.

Notice what neither constraint was about. Neither was about the quality of the teaching. Both were about geography and furniture, and those are two of the few things a coaching institute can actually change.

What was built

Edumia implemented an all-in-one app so the institute could move its classes online, and the app worked as three things at once: an e-learning platform, a learning management system, and an admission platform. The team also helped Futuring set up and improve its website so aspirants had somewhere to get information, and linked the pieces to a single panel.

Online admission was added to the website, letting a student ask questions and register for a course without travelling to an office.

Once a student is in, the platform lets them study online through live classes or by working through e-books and video lectures.

It also lets a teacher set assignments and review the work that comes back, which matters more in coaching than it does in a school, because a coaching course is measured by the exam at the end of it.

There is one more thing a coaching institute gets from running online, and it is easy to overlook: a record of who attended, who submitted and who is falling behind, held against each student rather than remembered by the teacher.

What the online admission portal had to do

Admission was the quiet half of this project, and it is worth taking seriously. A student who had never set foot on the campus had to be able to ask a question, understand what the course involved, and register for it, without a trip to an office. That is a higher bar than it sounds, because the students were spread across five districts and the institute had no front desk they could reach during a lockdown.

The website did the first part of the job: it became the primary source of information for aspirants, and a virtual point of contact where there had been a building before. Online admission did the second part, letting a student clarify a doubt and register for a course in the same place they had gone looking for it.

The result the account reports is that the portal benefited both sides. The institute stopped losing enquiries it could not process, and the student stopped having to wait for an office to reopen to know whether they had a place.

Why one panel, and not four tools

It would be easy to read this project as four separate purchases: a website, a class tool, somewhere to keep the study material, and a form for admissions. Futuring ended up with one panel instead, and the reason is not tidiness.

It is that the four things talk to each other. An admission that does not create a student record leaves the next step to be done by hand. A class that does not know who is enrolled cannot tell a teacher who is missing. Study material that is not attached to a course cannot be found by the students who need it. Keep each of those in its own tool and you have not removed the work — you have moved it, from the teacher to whoever ends up copying names between systems.

What the single panel buys is not a feature. It is the connection between features, which is the part that saves a founder who is trying to run the whole institute from one place.

What changed for the institute

The published account lists the impacts. It saved the founder the time he had spent travelling. It let several aspirants attend a session, because there was no seating limitation. The online admissions portal benefited the institute and the students. The website became the primary source of information for aspirants and a virtual point of contact. Students could study from their own place, with study material at their disposal and recorded classes for anything they missed. The founder could handle everything from a single point, and gained more time for preparation and for other projects.

The timing is the part worth dwelling on. Implementation started in September 2019, the trial period ran to November, and the platform was then fully implemented. Futuring became the first institute in Kerala to offer JRF/NEET and JAM coaching online. When the lockdown arrived, facilitators and students were already used to the format. While other institutes were working out how to move, Futuring carried on.

That is not luck. It is the difference between adopting something when it is convenient and adopting it when it is forced. The institute that changed in September had months to iron out the problems; the institute that changed in March had none.

The launch, and the client

The Futuring mobile app was launched by Padma Vibhushan Dr. G. Madhavan Nair, a former Chairman of ISRO, which also raised the profile of the app.

We rely on Edumia Learning App; it is a core application for our operations. Thanks guys, you are the best in the business, as always.

Mr. Shejith Edathil, Director, Futuring Learning Solutions Private Limited

What this shows

The lesson is not that online teaching beats a classroom. It is about which constraint you choose to lift. Futuring was capped by seats and by a founder's calendar, and neither cap had anything to do with how well the students were being taught. Moving the class online removed both at once.

The same question is worth asking of any institution: what is the thing actually limiting you? If it is the room, the seats or the travel, then the answer is a platform, and the earlier you make the move, the less it costs you. If it is the teaching, a platform will not fix it.

There is a second lesson in the details. Futuring did not simply put its existing course online. It had to decide what a class is when nobody is in a room, what a recorded lecture is for, and how an assignment gets from a teacher to a student and back. Those questions have answers, but the answers have to be chosen rather than inherited, and choosing them is the real work of moving an institution online.

The account also suggests a reason to start before you have to. An institute that moved in September had a trial period, a November that ironed out the problems, and a settled habit by the new year. An institute that waited had a lockdown, a deadline and no room for error, all at once.

For a founder wearing every hat, that is the real gain. Futuring ran on the time of one person, and the platform gave some of that time back — not by making the work disappear, but by removing the parts of it that had nothing to do with teaching. The founder ended up handling everything from one place, which is what the online admission, the classes, the material and the records add up to when they sit together.