Nuutan.com: Tough courses in the easiest ways, ₹5 to 50.
Edu Startup nuutan.com aims to redefine concept learning, practice & counselling !
nuutan.com is an education based start-up by a seasoned educational content writer Manish Kumar Jha. Armed with 18 years of actual classroom teaching experience in various universities and a vast experience of face to face academic counseling of students preparing for a range of examinations, he has also authored some of the best selling academic books in India.
Indiainput.com caught up with him on what makes his education start-up unique and different. Excerpts:
India Input Desk
Delhi based Manish Kumar Jha has coined a term to explain what his startup does for the students. He says, ‘We at nuutan.com work to help the students ‘for the ease of doing studies’. Jha has a self confessed passion for simplifying things to suit all.
When asked to further simplify the way he likes to describe his start-up, he says, ‘three hours for an examination is highly inadequate to solve the paper, if you get confused at the eleventh hour. All your hard work can go for a toss, if you get confused. So, my mantra is – number one: master the concept and number two: practice in all possible angles of the concept, so that there is no confusion, only the correct approach with correct confidence. We make concept learning easier. He or she may be a topper student or a commoner, my start-up helps all of them. In understanding the concepts in the easiest ways possible and then practicing in every angle of the topic. So that, you don’t have to overuse your brain during the exam. See, the exam time is very crucial. Because, if you overuse your brain while solving a paper, chances are – you will lose half of your performance.’
Q. So what’s the solution?
MJ : ‘See, I am happy when they understand the concept. Nothing works better for a teacher than his student’s smile when the teacher has succeeded in passing the concept to him or her. Yes. I feel charged up when my students appear to have understood the concept. When they say, ‘its quite easy. You make things look quite easy!’ I feel my efforts have paid me huge compliment. I feel happy and satisfied. I am against mindless mugging up. Give them easy way to understand the concept. Let them understand it easily. Then, give them practice questions. Let them practice in all possible angles. Then set them free for the exams.’
Academic Questions for Test Preparation
Talking about its flagship product, the MCQ question bank, he explains, ‘See, nuutan.com has designed academic questions in its various famous formats like in: (1) Multiple Choice Questions; (2) Fill-up the Blanks; (3) Short Question-answer; (4) Long Question-answer; et cetera of all or maximum subjects under a range of examinations held in India, like: (1) Class 10 (Matriculation); (2) Class 12 (Intermediate); (3) IIT- JEE/MAINS and other Engineering Entrance Tests; (4) NEET/AIIMS; (5) Graduate Aptitude Test in Engineering (GATE); (6) National Eligibility Test (NET); (7) Central Universities Common Entrance Test (CUCET); (8) Banking Sector Job Entrance Tests; (9) Railways Job Entrance Tests; (10) Universities Semester/Annual Subject-wise Examinations; et cetera.’
‘And our question bank is being welcomed already. We are continuously in the process of updating and adding up our question answer bank.’
One ₹ for 10 MCQs
Q. Aren’t other platforms offering similar educational content?
MJ : ‘Off course many other platforms are doing it for the last many years; but we are trying our best to come with uniquely designed questions with their exact answers and explanations in easiest possible ways. All of it in all the written formats I just mentioned with an amazingly simple price tag for it, say “one Indian Rupees for any 10 MCQs”, and so on.’
‘At present, the internet is filled with questions from previous years in various examinations with their explanations. However, there is extremely less focus on knowledge based academic content which can help students, even academically average level students, to tackle all or maximum examination questions by themselves. Even their teachers can not solve these with minimum effort. We shall soon be offering these.’
‘For example, let us consider the GATE Computer Science examination. In this examination, very frequently, an MCQ is asked, where a Context Free Grammar is given as input and it is asked to choose its correct FIRST or FOLLOW value, which students need to calculate. Internet is filled with such type of questions; there are many textbooks and competitive preparation books, that contain lots of questions on this topic with its theory; many videos on this one can be found on YouTube; but the fact remains that still maximum students and teachers are really confused about it. It is not just one example. There exist n numbers of such cases in almost all subjects, in which our students and even various teachers are struggling to tackle.’
‘Another related fact is that MCQs generally carry one or two marks, so students are keenly behind solving each such question with the help of all possible resources like books, teacher notes, YouTube videos, et cetera. But still, they are not finding exact facts which is explained to them in a very layman manner and in very detail, so that they can know exact theoretical knowledge behind such topics and then be able to solve any such MCQ within a minute. That is what we are working for, at nuutan.com. Our major focus is on a given stepwise flow of subject topics, so that they can understand it well, and be able to solve various questions after doing practice on it. We are working for them.’
Q. Your website mentions E books for the ease of studying..
MJ : ‘Yes, nuutan.com publishes good and useful eBooks for students, valued at rupees 5 to 50, so that any student can have very effective content, at a very-very less price. We are continuously adding up in these titles to cover a wide spectrum of topics. Keep watching, as we are also going to offer steep discounts in the forthcoming publications.’
Academic Counselling
Q. Isn’t it an already crowded space for academic Counseling for Students? There are a range of consultants, specialized consultants etc..
MJ : ‘No, there can always be scope for new initiatives. My start-up nuutan.com is carefully building an experienced and qualified team across India who enrich the academic counseling part by their experience and problem solving skills to benefit students, especially of standard 8 to 12. We strongly believe that academic counseling is very different from motivation-based counseling where we just motivate students by making them realise that “yes, I can do”. Once confidence is instilled, one can do wonders. We strongly believe in positive academic counseling, in which we are trying our best to give students a perfect solution to their academic problems, like:
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Negative Perception: Many standard 11th or 12th students believe that any particular subject, say Physics, is a very tough subject, and they feel they are unable to understand it or handle it in a good manner; due to which he or she cannot get good rank in the NEET examination.
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Unsatisfactory marks despite good comprehension : A majority of students are very confused because, despite their knowledge in class 11th or 12th subjects, say physics, is excellent, still they are not able to secure good marks in internal examinations at school exams or coaching institutes where they are regularly attending classes to prepare for medical or engineering entrance tests.
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Mental Gap between student & teacher : Many students, even in metro cities (like Delhi, Mumbai, Bangalore, Kolkata), who spend several hours in the classroom, strongly believe that their teachers are academically not up to the mark. They believe that these teachers are not able to teach them subject(s) in good manner. Such students also strongly believe that teachers who are teaching at any branded coaching institute are always academically much better than any teacher at their school – and thus the main focus of such students and their parents are on any branded coaching institute and not on their school where students are usually spending 6 to 8 hours Monday to weekend.
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Loaded work for studies : Many students who are studying in any branded coaching institute strongly believe that they are not able to cope up school academic works and coaching institute academic works together.
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Time management: Many students are not able to manage their time perfectly with school, coaching institutes, and self study.
There is a wide range of academic problems which students are really facing and finding it difficult to cope up. Now, if we just positively motivate students that “everything is ok and you can do it, even when whatever academic problems you are facing”, such encouragement is found to be effective only in a few cases. Motivation can improve academic situations for a few students only. But, it fails to yield good results for all students. Sheer motivation or encouragement doesn’t work and many students fail to achieve their target. The students need much more than just motivation. One of the best solutions in such cases is “proper academic counseling”. This requires our best to resolve the academic issues of maximum individual students to improve in their academics. After years of research and analysis, Nuutan.com has formalized a scientific counselling structure to follow.
We aim to enrich the students on :
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How to cope up with the subjects and teaching at school and coaching institute;
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How to improve knowledge/understanding of any particular subject(s) in which he/she is lacking;
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How to prepare for any examination;
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How to achieve perfect academic results by going slow but steady;
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How to manage their time with school, coaching institute, and self study;
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How to practice for any academic subjects; et cetera
nuutan.com is already into counseling students and the results are very encouraging. Our future plan is to reach every student of India with better and better academic content. At an unbeatable cost.’
