Not Just JEE, NEET: Plans for IIT Kanpur - SATHEE go far beyond coaching to ‘routine school support’

Launched three years ago as a collaboration between the ministry of education and Indian Institute of Technology (IIT) Kanpur, Self Assessment Test and Help for Entrance Exams (SATHEE) aims to be a “digital public learning infrastructure” that’s closely aligned with schooling in five years. Also, this year, SATHEE has been featured in the “Real-World Impact of AI in Education” casebook launched at India AI Summit 2026. There’s no public data yet on the number of students to access it or succeed in the exams.

Prachi Garg, edtech senior director of SATHEE – IIT Kanpur spoke with Careers360 on the JEE, NEET coaching platform’s journey, its use of artificial intelligence tools, blended approach to teaching, offline centres, challenges and more. Edited excerpts:

As SATHEE is an online platform, is it able to address the issues students face while preparing for these competitive exams?

It is true that many learners benefit from face-to-face teaching, and SATHEE does not claim that digital learning alone can address every individual need. However, SATHEE has been designed to bridge access gaps, particularly for students in rural and remote areas where quality teachers and coaching facilities are often limited or unavailable.

To support concept clarification, SATHEE offers live, one-to-one and interactive doubt-clearing sessions from 10 am to 6 pm, allowing students to ask questions in real-time instead of waiting for a scheduled class. In addition, SATHEE conducts live interactive courses where students can directly engage with faculty during sessions.

Beyond live classes, the platform provides a dedicated discussion forum, an app-based doubt-asking feature where students can upload questions and receive clarifications, mentorship support from students of premier institutions such as IITs and All India Institute of Medical Sciences (AIIMS), an AI-enabled academic chatbot for instant support on common academic queries and platform navigation. This ensures continuous academic support even outside classroom hours.

Importantly, SATHEE recognises the value of blended learning. The platform is now expanding into a hybrid model through offline study centres (SATHEE Kendras), where students can physically come, study in a structured environment, and receive mentorship support.

These centres will provide guided study sessions, access to the SATHEE digital platform, mentorship from IIT and AIIMS students, weekly assessments and performance tracking and local facilitation support. This hybrid approach combines the scalability of digital learning with the human touch of mentorship and peer interaction.

Additionally, SATHEE has been implemented in 569 government non-School of Eminence (non-SOE) institutions in Punjab, where it significantly improved results. The number of JEE Main qualifiers rose from 49 to 85, and NEET qualifiers increased from 335 to 497 in one academic year – 2025.

Therefore, rather than being limited by its online nature, SATHEE is evolving into a blended, inclusive learning ecosystem — ensuring that students receive digital access, academic support, and offline mentorship, especially those who otherwise may not have access to quality coaching infrastructure.

The platform also provides a dedicated discussion forum and an app-based doubt-asking feature, where students can upload questions and receive clarifications, ensuring continuous academic support beyond live sessions. This is further strengthened through mentorship by students from premier institutions and an AI-enabled chatbot for common academic and navigation queries.

Also read Galgotias University: 2,297 patents filed, just 1% granted; with 63%, IITs far ahead of private institutes

Recognising the importance of blended learning, SATHEE is being positioned for school and teacher integration, enabling hybrid models where local facilitation complements the digital platform. This approach helps extend quality academic support at scale, especially to students who do not have easy access to offline coaching.

The platform offers preparations for JEE, NEET, SSC, banking, ICAR, CUET. How is the platform or the preparation material different from other state-led coaching provided across the country?

SATHEE has been designed to complement state-led coaching initiatives by providing high-quality, structured academic support at a national scale, in alignment with the vision of the National Education Policy (NEP) 2020. Rather than replacing existing systems, it serves as a common digital learning layer that states and institutions can integrate with their ongoing efforts.

A key differentiator of SATHEE is its strong emphasis on conceptual clarity instead of rote learning. The platform aims not only to prepare students for competitive examinations such as Joint Entrance Examination (JEE), National Eligibility cum Entrance Test (NEET), Staff Selection Commission (SSC), Banking, Indian Council of Agriculture Research (ICAR), and Common University Entrance Test (CUET), but also to help them build a strong academic foundation for board examinations while gradually developing confidence and interest in science and learning.

SATHEE’s major strength is its extensive academic repository. The platform hosts more than 90,000 practice questions, structured subject-wise test series, full-length mock tests, previous year questions, more than 10,000 video lectures and coverage across 12+ Indian languages. The platform has a large, curated question bank and structured testing system that ensures depth, exam alignment, and progressive difficulty— unlike many fragmented coaching models.

Unlike many state coaching programmes that primarily focus on content delivery, SATHEE integrates learning, practice, assessment, analytics, and mentoring into one unified ecosystem. Students not only access material but also receive structured feedback, gap analysis, and performance insights.

Further, in line with NEP 2020, SATHEE promotes multilingual access and inclusive digital education. The platform is completely free of cost, government-supported, and developed with academic oversight, ensuring quality, transparency, and scalability.

Overall, SATHEE functions as a free, scalable, AI-powered national learning ecosystem, particularly beneficial in regions where access to quality coaching, experienced faculty, or language-appropriate resources is limited. Its combination of a vast question bank, structured testing, and AI-driven personalisation makes it distinctly different from conventional state-led coaching models. But also to help them build a strong foundation for board examinations and gradually develop an interest and confidence in science and learning.

In line with NEP 2020, SATHEE is working towards expanding multilingual access, with learning material available in English, Hindi, and multiple Indian regional languages. This helps reduce language barriers and enables students from diverse socio-economic and regional backgrounds to engage meaningfully with academic content.

Also read NITs plan multiple-entry, exit in BTech across institutes, research parks with ADB loan, PhD reform

Further, the platform integrates assessment and feedback as a core component of learning. Through practice questions, mock tests, and the gradual integration of AI-enabled feedback and analytics, students can identify learning gaps, track progress, and improve in a more personalised and structured manner.

How many of SATHEE’s students have received coaching and have cleared the competitive exams so far?

Since its launch, the platform has witnessed strong adoption, with over 17 lakh students from India and abroad actively using SATHEE across different courses and assessments.

With regard to the number of students who have cleared competitive examinations, SATHEE follows a responsible reporting approach. Exam results are not centrally captured by the platform unless students voluntarily share their outcome details. Therefore, SATHEE does not publish aggregate success numbers based on assumptions or estimates.

To enable verified outcome tracking, SATHEE is working towards structured, consent-based mechanisms in collaboration with institutional partners.

How many teachers have contributed toward the study material? What was the process followed to get them onboard?

Content on the SATHEE platform is developed through a multi-source academic model.

Study material is contributed by faculty members from premier institutions such as IITs, AIIMS, and central universities, depending on the examination domain. In addition, experienced in-house subject experts also contribute to content development, particularly for practice questions, assessments, and exam-specific modules.

Given that content creation on SATHEE is an ongoing and expanding process, involving multiple roles — such as faculty contributors, subject experts, mentors, translators, reviewers, and academic coordinators — the platform avoids quoting a fixed number of faculty unless and until such figures are officially consolidated and published.

The onboarding of content follows a structured academic workflow. This typically includes syllabus mapping aligned with NCERT and the target examination, academic review by subject experts, integration of assessments (practice questions and tests), and quality assurance checks, including language translation and localization where applicable. Only after these stages is the content made available on the platform.

What challenges do you face in ensuring access?

The challenges faced by SATHEE are similar to those encountered by any national-scale digital learning initiative.

One key challenge is awareness—ensuring that students and parents, especially in districts where learning has traditionally relied on offline coaching, are informed about the platform in a timely manner. Another challenge relates to device availability and internet connectivity, as access to smartphones and reliable data networks remains uneven in some regions.

Also read JEE Advanced reports show IITs cut hundreds of BTech seats in core engineering; here’s what happened

To address these challenges, SATHEE focuses on school and teacher enablement, structured assessments, live doubt-clearing support, multilingual content, and outreach through state and board partnerships. Going forward, the platform is also introducing gamification and reward-based learning mechanisms to make studying more engaging and to help students develop sustained interest and positive learning habits.

How many students have used SSC, ICAR and CUET preparation material?

The SSC, ICAR, and CUET preparation modules are relatively new verticals on the SATHEE platform compared to long-established programmes such as JEE and NEET. Adoption for these exams is therefore being built progressively through targeted outreach and awareness efforts. Usage is continuously tracked through registrations, course enrollments, and participation in practice tests and assessments, though the platform refrains from publishing fixed numbers until consolidated and verified snapshots are available.

The platform uses an AI-centric tutoring system. Does it help with navigation of the platform?

On SATHEE, AI is used primarily to simplify the learning journey and guide students step by step, rather than overwhelming them with content. The focus is on helping students understand where they stand, what they should study next, and how to improve.

Also read NMC to speed up NEET counselling with seat-approval calendar, allow for-profits to set up medical colleges

The platform uses a Performance Diagnostics Engine (PDE) to analyse students’ quiz and test performance and identify learning gaps, weak topics, and common error patterns. Based on this analysis, SATHEE’s AI-driven recommendation system suggests the most relevant concept videos and study material, enabling students to focus on targeted revision instead of browsing through large volumes of content.

In addition, SATHEE deploys an Adaptive Practice Engine that generates customised practice questions for topics where students have made mistakes. This allows learners to strengthen concepts through focused practice rather than repetitive or random question-solving.

For aspirants, the platform also offers tools such as an AI-based Rank and College Predictor, which helps students make informed decisions during counselling by interpreting rank, percentile, and preference data.

Alongside these features, an AI-enabled chatbot assists students with navigation and common queries, making the platform easier to use even for first-time digital learners. Overall, the objective of AI on SATHEE is not to replace teachers, but to reduce friction, personalise learning pathways, and help students use their time and effort more effectively.

Also read CBSE Plans: Compulsory computing, AI in Classes 9, 10 syllabus; more skill subjects; 25% EWS quota review

SATHEE has recently integrated advanced AI-enabled features, making it one of the most technologically advanced public learning platforms in the country. These include an AI Conversational Tutor for guided and socratic-style learning; AI doubt solver and visual problem solver for step-by-step explanations, including handwritten and diagram-based questions; AI study plan generator for personalised preparation schedules, and adaptive learning paths that adjust topic sequencing based on student performance; AI mock test generator with performance analytics; AI answer evaluator for step-by-step marking and feedback; cutoff predictor and college predictor tools; confusion detector and AI mnemonics generator for conceptual clarity and memory retention; and a smart testing and performance analytics dashboard.

How do you see the platform being used over the next five years?

We want to build SATHEE as India’s AI-powered national learning infrastructure for competitive and foundational education. SATHEE will evolve from a preparation platform into a Digital Public Learning Infrastructure.

The following are our goals:

● Deepening state/board integration so SATHEE becomes part of routine school support

● Expanding blended learning models with local facilitation where needed

● Strengthening outcome tracking through consent-based and institution-linked mechanisms, and

● Scaling multilingual, AI-assisted personalisation so students from all regions can learn effectively