“It’s like an Airbnb for preschools,” says Arunprasad Durairaj, CEO and co-founder of Flintobox, describing the company’s recent foray into early education with ‘Flintoclass’. “It doesn’t matter where you are: at home, in a classroom, under a tree — any place can be turned into a preschool.”
After finding success with curated boxes of games and activities designed for children up to the age of 12, last year, Arun and his team toyed with the concept of introducing curated curricula for preschoolers. Eighteen months on, the home-grown startup’s Flintoclass has spread to Singapore, Malaysia, Qatar, the UAE, Laos, Indonesia and Kuwait.
“Flintobox was meant for kids everywhere, but we started noticing that a lot of our boxes were being ordered by preschools,” says Arun. “A number of preschools in our country are standalone mom-and-pop ones, where educators may need help with designing the curricula and activities. So we figured, why not give them exactly what they need?”
A subscription to Flintoclass comes with a curriculum in line with the US-based National Association for the Education of Young Children, a lesson plan for 170 days, activities for three sessions daily, and the material required. “For instance, if the session is on wildlife, we can send elephant ears for the entire class,” he says.
The idea is to help anyone with a passion to work with children become a teacher. Flintoclass has training modules for teachers in its online dashboard, along with short videos that help them prepare for for each class, and an assessment test to see if they are ready. “It also comes with an app for parents and teachers to keep track of their children’s’ development,” he says.
Currently, over 500 preschools in eight countries run on the Flintoclass programme. “Depending on how Flintoclass does in these countries, and once we have a better understanding of what the market is like, we will be ready to roll out individual Flintoboxes as well.”
Arun is now building a team of psychologists, pedagogists, and artists at his early education research centre in Thoraipakkam.
Visit https://flintobox.com
