As part of an extensive PR campaign to overhaul its reputation in India following several controversies surrounding unsavory content, short format video streaming app, TikTok, has launched an education initiative in the country as it tries to soothe frayed nerves within sections of the conservative political establishment. Aimed largely at first-time internet users in the country, the initiative is aimed at “democratizing learning for the Indian digital community on the platform”, said the company.
Owned by Chinese tech statup, ByteDance, TikTok on Thursday said the project will aim to ‘revolutionize e-learning in India’ with educational shows related to fitness, nutrition, spoken English and more. Meant to be consumed on mobile devices, most of the content as part of the program will be small videos rather than long-drawn tutorials (unlike YouTube, for instance), and include tips and tricks, motivational messages and more.
TikTok also announced tie-ups with a number of home-grown eLearning institutes, including Toppr, Made Easy and GradeUp to add to the several partnerships announced last month with various other companies in the education sector, such as Vedantu, Vidya Guru, Hello English and CETKing. The company also announced collaborations with a media platform called Josh Talks and an education NGO called The/Nudge Foundation to educate 5,000 young creators on the platform.
According to Sachin Sharma, the Director of Sales and Partnerships at TikTok, many educational videos are already live on the platform, and users can search for those by using the hashtag #EduTok. There are already apparently 10 million videos tagged #EduTok, with over 48 billion views in total, he said.
