Things have already started moving towards that end. NIIT, the e-business solutions service provider, has picked up equity stake in Classteacher.com, an Internet based communication and learning solutions site for schools.

The brainchild of three young IIT graduates, Rohit Pande, Sameer Buti and Apoorv Misra, Classteacher.com is based on the concept of Internet driven virtual schools, which will provide futuristic learning tools to students, teachers and parents. The site works in partnership with schools to provide personalised learning modules for schoolchildren.

The main objective behind the site, says Buti, who is Classteacher.com's COO, is to provide stimulating ways of learning for children, and also provide teachers and parents with steady feedback on the child's individual learning graph.

Teachers will provide the learning modules that will make up the content for the site. NIIT will also make available its expertise in technology and content creation to Classteacher.com.

The site will capture all the academic details and progress of all students from the time they enter school. A comprehensive profile of every student, featuring all the modules the student has taken and his scores, will be maintained. This information can be used to identify deficiency areas and then guide the learner towards specific study material.

The first investment made by NIIT in India, the site is readying to enroll several hundred schools into its programme.

According to CEO Rohit Pande, schools are seeing tremendous value in sharing knowledge through a large network of schools, as visualised under the programme. "Classteacher.com is a personalised and adaptive learning portal with the potential to accelerate a student's performance by supplementing the school's efforts," he said.

NIIT is the first big investor in the site and the funds provided will go into content creation, infrastructure development and marketing and advertising, informs the trio.

"We have a potentially valuable and viable business proposition for the school community in Classteacher.com. In a clutter of education portals, Classteacher.com has a compelling customer acquisition and revenue model, which sets it apart from the competition. In fact, it is a second generation site with real revenue," says R Venkatesh Iyer, senior vice-president, NIIT.

NIIT's investment in the site, Iyer adds, will provide strategic value for NIIT's K-12 brick and mortar LEDA Family Clubs. It will also help NIIT to gain valuable experience in creating web-enabled content for the K-12 segment. "This tie-up," he says, "will help us take a big step in leveraging the Internet as a delivery mechanism for the K-12 segment."