Anthropic and Pratham Deploy AI Assessment Tool in India
Anthropic has partnered with India’s Pratham Education Foundation to deploy an AI-powered formative assessment tool in Indian schools. The system uses Anthropic's Claude model to provide feedback and remedial content to students in underserved communities. The initiative demonstrates the global expansion of adaptive AI tools across different languages and curricula.
- The assessment tool, called the "Anytime Testing Machine" (ATM), is designed for the realities of underserved communities in India; students handwrite answers, photograph them, and upload the images for the system to digitize and grade. This process addresses infrastructure challenges like uneven internet connectivity and device access. - Through an iterative process of prompt engineering and using an LLM-as-a-judge framework, Pratham and Anthropic improved the tool's grading accuracy from an initial 30% to approximately 80% alignment with human subject-matter experts. The system's accuracy for generating curriculum-aligned questions has reached 90%. - A key design principle is maintaining teacher oversight; educators review and can modify the AI-generated feedback before it is shared with students, ensuring pedagogical soundness and contextual relevance. - Pratham has a history of digital initiatives dating back to 2015, focusing on community-driven, digitally-aided learning. Their "PraDigi Open Learning Model" integrates technology and community social structures to create flexible learning environments. - This initiative is part of a broader push by Anthropic into India, which has become the second-largest global user base for Claude.ai. The company recently opened a Bengaluru office to support local enterprises and non-profits in building AI solutions. - Anthropic mandates that direct users of its products must be 18 or older and is developing classifiers to detect conversational signs that a user may be underage. For partners serving minors, Anthropic requires the implementation of additional safety measures, such as content filtering and monitoring mechanisms. - The initial pilots of the ATM tool have already reached 6,000 learners, including school students and women returning to complete their Grade 10 examinations. The plan for 2026 is to expand the pilot to an additional 15,000 learners. - The partnership extends beyond this assessment tool, with Anthropic set to support Pratham's "Tech in TaRL" (Teaching at the Right Level) initiative, which is an AI-powered support system for teachers.
