Bangalore : In the post-pandemic era, as parents around the world look for blended learning solutions for their children, for the first time in Vietnam, award-winning global live-learning platform BrightCHAMPS has launched its phygital model for life-skills learning, aptly named the BrightCHAMPS Next-Gen Hub.
The first-of-its-kind life-skills learning centre offers hybrid STEM-accredited classes based on a curriculum extensively reviewed by an independent Global Curriculum Advisory Board with world-renowned experts from Roblox, Kyron Learning, GEMS Education, and Nous Group. The courses are in crucial subjects such as coding, robotics, financial literacy, and communications – things that are often overlooked in traditional schooling systems, but are necessary for success in a digital world without borders. The first Hub has opened its doors in Ho Chi Minh City in Vietnam, from February 19, while the second is slated to follow soon, in May 2023, in Ho Chi Minh City.
Speaking at the launch, BrightCHAMPS Founder and CEO, Ravi Bhushan said, “Our number one priority has always been to help our students achieve the best possible learning outcomes across all four next-gen skills. Our research with over 500 Vietnamese parents and students showed a strong preference for a blended approach that combines the best of both worlds – the convenience of online tools and social learning through pair programming, group activities, masterclasses, and whiteboarding at offline Hubs. Interactions with thousands of parents across the US, UK, UAE, Australia, and South East Asia has shown us that parents want global companies like BrightCHAMPS to simplify their lives by being the one-stop destination for all non-academic, life skills learning for their kids. So we’re definitely looking to establish BrightCHAMPS Next-Gen Hubs around the world with this need in mind in the coming year.”
Vietnam has seen some concentrated efforts from the government to help its growing youth population of over 20.4 million to upskill themselves through Technical and Vocational Education and Training (TVET) reform programmes and a new National Gender Equality Strategy. Despite this, according to 2021 data, only 12% of Vietnam’s workforce is considered highly skilled.
As Vietnam focusses on raising the standard of its vocational education and bringing it to the level of top ASEAN countries by 2030, the need of the hour is to make skilling more accessible and affordable. Life-skills programs that teach kids crucial skills they will need as part of the global workforce will help kids grow into adults that are well-equipped to be a part of the global workforce.
Elaborating on this, Nhu Tranh De Tranh, who is leading the BrightCHAMPS Next-Gen Hub project in Vietnam, said, “The BrightCHAMPS Next-Gen Hubs are our attempt to support the Vietnamese government’s bid to upskill our kids and help them become global citizens. We offer blended courseworks in entrepreneurship, finance, tech, coding, communications, robotics and AI, half of which will be through live 1-on-1 classes online, and the other half at the Hub, in small groups of kids with similar learning goals, speeds and needs, through our proprietary adaptive learning algorithm. The courses can also be customised based on every child’s goal and aspiration, and will be taught by the Top 5% teachers we appoint after evaluation on a rigorous 12-point evaluation criteria and certified by top universities in the world.”
A study conducted by the Center for Digital Education showed that 73% of teachers who use hybrid learning reported increased student engagement, 60% teachers said it improved their students’ academic ability and up to 94% of all students engaged in a blended learning programme finished the selected course successfully. Yet another study done by the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation found that students who learn using a “blended phygital” approach, report better levels of understanding in reading as well as Maths.