Class 12 student develops app to help teachers deliver customised lesson plans

If all students have a unique set of abilities, shouldn't the education they receive be just as unique? While modern curricula often overlook this, 17-year-old Samaya Bery, a class 12 student in Delhi, did not. She found the answer in coding, bringing iLesson to life.

It was when she started a reading program to help the students of a government school in Delhi, that something became glaringly obvious to Samaya. The categorisation of students into language levels in pursuit of personalised education overlooks the speaking, listening, writing and reading skills. 

Samaya, who studies at the Shri Ram School Moulsari, developed iLesson in 2025. The tool runs as a web application and helps teachers generate customised lesson plans tailored to students' specific learning needs. It takes into account differences within grading categories such as reading, writing, and speaking, adding another layer of personalisation.

The teacher enters her assessment of the students' level based on India's Foundational Literacy and Numeracy Framework, which they can refer to on the website itself, in an input form. Following this, the backend AI uses the linked database to deliver personalised lesson plans for each student. This is then distributed to students as worksheets.

While classifying students into levels is supposed to enable customisation while maintaining a certain degree of uniformity, students' performance in reading, writing, and speaking varies significantly even within the same level, making general course plans ineffective.

To Samaya, who had just learnt Python the summer before, an AI-based solution seemed the most suitable way to solve it. In the months that followed, Samaya learnt JavaScript, worked with a mentor to develop the application, ran multiple test runs, reached out to foundations and organisations for implementation, and rolled out its initial phase. These organisations provided her with relevant feedback based on their experience working at grassroots levels.

Samaya's plans do not end with this. She hopes to expand it to several more languages and improve customisations to suit state curricula and geographically diverse users. Additionally, she considers the inclusion of algorithms that can generate content for neurodivergent or differently abled students, who are often overlooked in mainstream learning spaces.

The software, which is provided for free, was not costly to set up either. Operating on a low overhead has kept away the need for external funding. However, Samaya says that such funding would be required as it expands.

"People are cautious when approaching AI because it's new, and since it becomes difficult to train teachers," says Samaya, talking about the challenges she faces. However, she remains optimistic, finding that people are highly receptive and interested in the idea.