IN most of Asia, examinations play a vital and consequential role in education systems. Here, strong academic results often open doors to scholarships, higher education and better career opportunities.
For this reason, Malaysian edtech (education technology) company Pandai Education has made it its mission to harness technology to create learning solutions that help students improve their academic performance.
“By supporting students to achieve better grades, we’re helping them unlock their full potential,” Raja Nazatul Akhma, co-founder and chief product officer of Pandai Education, tells StarBiz 7.
Its online application (app), Pandai, has fast become the educational tool of choice for students at primary and secondary school levels seeking high-quality, personalised learning content.
Offering engaging quizzes, tests, exams, notes and videos accompanied by innovative performance tracking and gamification capabilities, the platform looks to “bridge educational inequalities at scale”.
Nazatul and her Pandai co-founders Khairul Anwar Mohamad Zaki, Mohd Suhaimi Ramly and Mohd Akmal Akhpah, aptly met during their schooling days in MRSM Jasin (now MRSM Tun Ghaffar Baba).
The team ventured into the education sector over 15 years ago, bringing in well-known international co-academic competitions such as Kangaroo Maths and the Beaver Computational Thinking.
“While these paper-based competitions successfully engaged high-performing students, we realised the potential to reach and benefit a much wider group by leveraging technology to make learning more accessible, scalable and engaging,” Nazatul shares.
Through their observations and experience in the education field, they identified three main gaps that hampered students in the learning process: the inability to study at their own pace and style, a lack of motivation to learn, and insufficient ways to analyse their progress.
Their solution was Pandai, an education app delivering effective, fun content that would adapt to individual student needs.
Launched in 2020, the platform started out offering quizzes in math and science which were released every day. Gradually, the content extended to more subjects and year groups to meet wider user demand.
“We’ve since evolved into two main modes – level-based quizzes and topic-based mastery with unlimited questions. Students now progress based on their own performance analytics, giving them greater control over their learning journey,” she says.
Today, the app boasts 1.25 million registered students, with over 2.5 million questions completed per week. The platform operates on a freemium subscription model, which includes two paid tier levels offering additional learning content and features.
Tthe business also partners with companies for corporate social responsibility initiatives on a business-to-business. sponsorship model, enabling them to fund Pandai Premium access for selected schools and under-served students.
Like many learning apps, Pandai utilises gamification elements and competition to engage and motivate users.
In addition to features like in-app coins, real-time social “quiz battles” and competitive leaderboards, the platform also incorporates a reward redemption system whereby students earn rewards like merchandise and e-vouchers for completing quizzes.
For Nazatul, one aspect that sets Pandai apart is its comprehensive, curriculum-based content.
“Many other gamified platforms function primarily as tools, requiring teachers to create or upload their own materials,” she says.
“In contrast, Pandai’s content is aligned to the Malaysian national curriculum across all core subjects, making it immediately usable and classroom-ready for both students and educators.”
To enhance learning outcomes and effectiveness, artificial intelligence (AI) technology is utilised in a number of its functions, such as personalised performance analytics, dynamically adjusted learning paths, tailored suggestions for improvement strategies, subjective answer marking, and an AI chatbot study companion.
“These features work together to make Pandai not just a learning app, but a smart educational assistant,” she notes.
When it comes to developing Pandai’s offerings, Nazatul stresses that the product is never finished but constantly adapted and updated.
“We continuously refine the platform through regular conversations with our users who are students, parents and teachers. Their feedback is actively embedded into how we build and improve the app.”
The company is determined to continue addressing educational challenges in the local context and to deepen its efforts towards greater inclusion.
One key initiative involves collaborating with Pemulihan teachers to develop targeted home learning resources to combat the concerning decline in basic literacy and numeracy skills among Malaysian children.
The Pandai team is also working to make its AI-powered study buddy bot work offline so those without internet access can still benefit from Pandai’s interactive learning tools, even outside of school hours.
“Our vision is to make quality education accessible, engaging and measurable for every student. We want to empower teachers with the analytics and AI tools they need to uplift learning outcomes, starting in Malaysia and soon across the region,” she adds.
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