These days, everyone seems to have a mobile phone, including students, and teachers have always had difficulty with effective communication outside of class. Arch – The Way is here to solve the problem of teacher-student communication, by allowing teachers to connect with their students and parents on their phones. Teachers can broadcast messages and files to the entire class, and can receive feedback from the students’ parents privately. This solves the hitherto existing disconnect between teachers and their students and students’ parents due to limits on time and communication. Teachers can use an Android device or their computer to send updates, and students can receive them through their email or via an Android, iOS, or Windows device, so basically anyone with access to technology can use Arch. Currently, the service is free for both teachers and students, and the team behind Arch intend on keeping it that way, though perhaps with introducing a few premium services in the future. The platform emphasizes simplicity and privacy – there is no need for parents and students to exchange contact details in order to connect. Basically, every teacher is assigned a unique class code, and students/parents have to subscribe to this via the app, thus making it simple to connect quickly.
Founder Rudresh Chowdhary dropped out of his Chartered Accountancy course to start up with Arch, which seemed to be a bold and risky step at the time – but now he’s very much satisfied with having taken that step. He and the Arch team wanted to do something about teachers having difficulty with communication outside of class, and came with that platform as a solution. The closest thing that Arch – The Way has to competition is US-based Remind, but that service is limited only to image-sharing and messaging.