As the educational institutes across the country embraced digital learning since the nationwide lockdown due to the COVID-19 pandemic, Google has collaborated with Maharashtra government to enable a digital platform. Under this collaboration, for over 2.3 crore students and teachers in the state will get access to blended learning that combines the classroom approach with online learning, using free tools like G Suite for Education, Google Classroom, Google Meet and more. As part of this partnership, the state will be providing each of the educators and students with their own G Suite ID.

"The digital transformation of education in a country as large as ours requires many partners to come together, united in their vision to deliver quality education to everyone. We are heartened that the Maharashtra state government is championing this vision with today's announcement, of working toward a reality when every student - whether in private school in Mumbai or in a remote village in the Sahyadris - can get access to the same quality education," writes Sanjay Gupta, Country Head & Vice President, Google India in a blog post.

The Maharashtra government rolled out a survey asking teachers from the state to register for the first set of teacher-training programmes. It received tremendous demand as 150,000 of the 700,000 educators across the state signed up in less than 48 hours.

"Whether learning takes place in the classroom, at home, or within a hybrid model, Google for Education solutions spark learning anywhere, and empower teachers to provide excellent educational experiences, nurture individual needs, and enable students to learn better together," adds Gupta.

To enable educators and students to be more productive when connecting remotely includes various tools. The G Suite for Education is a free suite of familiar communication and collaboration tools including Gmail, Docs and Drive, as well as Classroom, enabling learning anywhere, anytime, and on a range of devices. Google Classroom is a powerful tool in G Suite for Education, helping educators to easily create, review, and organise assignments, as well as communicate directly with students in the classroom or while distance learning. Google Forms is a simple question and response tool that allows educators to fill out or import questions to quickly create quizzes and tests. And Assignments can be used for quickly and securely creating, analysing, and grade coursework, and provide students with a more flexible way of learning.

Earlier last month, Google announced its partnership with CBSE to enable over 1 million teachers across 22,000 schools in India to deliver blended learning.