How Zoho’s Low-Code Platform is Solving Rural India’s Educational Dilemma
India still faces a major challenge with educating its students, with over 1.25 million students out of school in 2022-23. States like UP, MP, Bihar, Gujarat, and Assam have the highest number of out-of-school children. Despite government initiatives to improve rural education infrastructure, such as the Sarva Shiksha Abhiyan and Digital India program, the on-ground implementation often falls short due to lack of proper supervision and tracking. Challenges related to access, quality of education, socioeconomic factors and infrastructure persist, with lack of proper classrooms, libraries, computer labs etc. “Most schools and colleges still rely heavily on paper-based and manual data collection, which is the main hurdle in providing real-time insights that can enable decision intelligence,” noted Bharath Kumar B, head of customer experience and success at Zoho Creator in a conversation with AIM. To overcome these challenges, Zoho through its low-code platform Zoho Creator has allowed NGOs like Pratham, which works to improve education for underprivileged children in rural India, to create apps to manage online classes, exams, student records, communication and more in one centralised system. Pratham uses Zoho Creator apps to facilitate better data collection, analysis, and reporting, saving significant time and effort. Institutes Embracing Zoho Creator Beyond just supporting remote education, Zoho Creator is helping drive innovation and improve experiences across the student lifecycle. For example, DAV Group of Schools built a unified custom solution consisting of 100 applications, including modules for IT ticketing, fixed asset management, career counselling, and entrance exams. “SRM University used Zoho Creator to digitise their previously manual course registration process. They were following a manual paper-drive process to manage course registration, which was not scalable to meet their growing needs,” Kumar explained. Likewise, YEG Academy, a Malaysia-based educational organisation built their entire process management application on Zoho Creator—and the platform has helped them save up to $50,000 in costs. Ensuring Data Privacy and Security With educational institutions handling sensitive student data in large volume, data privacy and security remain top concerns. Keeping this in mind, Zoho Creator offers enterprise-grade security features and complies with major data protection regulations to give schools peace of mind. “Zoho Creator incorporates robust security and privacy controls like end-to-end encryption, GDPR- and HIPAA-compliance, multi-factor authentication, data isolation, and adherence to strict security protocols and data privacy laws,” said Kumar. The company also ensures other compliance standards like ISO/IEC 27001, SOC 2 + HIPAA. Kumar also claimed that as a company, Zoho never sells customer data and automatically deletes data from terminated accounts within six months. Empowering Educators and Students In addition to back-office functions, Zoho Creator is being used to build innovative tools that directly impact teaching and learning. One example is the Teacher Training Management System (TTMS) built for the Department of State Education Research and Training of Karnataka. Developed in collaboration with the Azim Premji Foundation, TTMS is transforming teacher education in India. The platform has already enabled  TTMS, a cloud-based platform, facilitating over 2,000 training sessions for more than 200,000 teachers. Moreover, the platform offers a wide range of study materials, including documents, PDFs, slideshows, and audio and video files, which teachers can access to prepare for training sessions. Supporting Skill Development Beyond K-12 and higher education, Zoho Creator is helping with skill development and vocational training. YEG Academy, which offers career guidance and education aligned with job market demands, was able to build a comprehensive system for managing students, enrollment, sales, customer service, finance, and HR on the platform. Zoho has launched programmes like Young Creators Programme (YCP) to teach college students the basics of building low-code applications using Zoho Creator. “In this free workshop, students are taught the basics of creating applications and solutions using Zoho Creator. They also learn aspects like automating business processes, managing data relationships, and utilising business intelligence and analytics,” Kumar added. To date, YCP has collaborated with 32 educational institutions across 20 cities in India and introduced over 7,040 students globally to low-code development. By empowering the next generation with the tools to build applications, Zoho is helping create a pipeline of talent for the digital economy. The platform also enables schools to digitise the entire admissions process, from inquiry to acceptance and enrollment. Features like online application forms, document upload, eligibility checks, and applicant communication can all be handled through a custom portal. Beyond academics, Zoho Creator can also digitise campus processes virtually, such as vehicle fleet management, classroom asset tracking, library reservations, and dining hall orders. As the education sector continues to evolve, Low-code will also enable schools to take advantage of emerging technologies like AI, machine learning, and augmented/virtual reality. Zoho Creator already offers an AI Modeler feature that allows users to build intelligent applications without needing data science expertise. Enabling Data-Driven Decision Making Perhaps the most significant benefit of using a platform like Zoho Creator is the ability to collect and analyse data across the institution. When processes are digitised and centralised, schools gain visibility into areas that were previously siloed or opaque. “Zoho Creator applications run on the same infrastructure as these services. We provide a proprietary cloud-native platform that was specifically designed to scale according to the needs of an application,” said Kumar. “All parts of the application scale automatically—from user request management and storage resources to computational abilities.” With all data in one place, schools can generate reports and dashboards to track KPIs, identify trends, and make data-driven decisions. For example, administrators can analyse enrollment data to optimise course offerings, or use student performance data to identify at-risk students and intervene early. Worthy Alternatives? Besides Zoho Creator there are other low-code platforms and education management systems used in India, like Edisapp, Fedena, and Academia ERP, which could be considered alternatives or competitors to in the Indian education market. Other global low-code platforms like OutSystems, Mendix, Planet Crust, and BP Logix demonstrate use cases and adoption in education, but they don’t specifically have a presence in India. Creatrix Campus, is one such an AI-driven, cloud-based platform specifically designed for higher education institutions, is gaining significant traction in India and globally. The platform offers end-to-end solutions for automating student and faculty lifecycles, learning and teaching, aiming to provide exceptional experiences. Key features include complete student lifecycle management, faculty management, outcome-based learning tools, analytics and reporting, a secure and customisable cloud platform, and a mobile-first approach. Creatrix Campus is already being used by over 150+ institutions in 28 countries, including India, with 100,000+ users. While both platforms allow educational institutions to develop custom applications with minimal coding, Creatrix Campus appears to be more specialised for the higher education sector, whereas Zoho Creator offers flexibility for a broader range of educational use cases. In comparison, Zoho Creator is a more general-purpose low-code application development platform that caters to various industries, including education. It enables users to build custom applications for admissions, course management, student records, and other educational processes.
Indian Institutes like DAV, SRM and NGOs like Pratham are leveraging Zoho Creator to enable and fastrack administration, online classes etc.
Indian Institutes like DAV, SRM and NGOs like Pratham are leveraging Zoho Creator to enable and fastrack administration, online classes etc.
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Shyam is a tech journalist with expertise in policy and politics, and exhibits a fervent interest in scrutinising the convergence of AI and analytics in society. In his leisure time, he indulges in anime binges and mountain hikes.