Running a state PSC coaching app in your students' language

Taking a state PSC batch online is mostly a problem of language and phones, and recording the lectures is the easy part. Notes and questions have to be Unicode text in the state's script. Mocks should carry both languages your commission prints, and Mains practice should be handwritten in the language the student will write the exam in. All of it has to work on an entry-level Android phone running on mobile data.

Start from your commission's own language rules

Before you compare any software, read the language clauses in your commission's latest notification and the instructions printed on its question booklet. They decide what your tests and answer-writing programme should look like, and they differ from state to state.

Tamil Nadu shows how much detail sits in these documents. The TNPSC Group I notification of March 2024 sets general studies questions in both Tamil and English, for prelims and Mains. Mains opens with Paper I, a Tamil Eligibility Test of SSLC standard: 100 marks, with 40 needed to qualify. Papers II to IV are evaluated only if the candidate clears it. Differently abled candidates can claim an exemption. Anyone else, say an engineering graduate in Chennai who has studied in English for years, needs Tamil writing practice from you. Without it, their general studies answers are never read.

The commission's instructions to candidates go further. An answer book written partly in Tamil and partly in English, except where the paper allows it, will be invalidated. Only technical words that can't be translated may stay in the other language. A student who drifts into English halfway through an answer needs to hear about it from your evaluator in practice, months before the real Mains.

In the Hindi belt, the prelims papers of commissions such as BPSC, MPPSC, RPSC and UPPSC print each question in Hindi and English. If the booklet says which version prevails when the two differ, put the same rule on your own mocks. Students then learn to read the authoritative version whenever a translated question looks odd.

Old notes in legacy fonts break the moment they go online

Many institutes that have taught in Hindi or Marathi for years have question banks typed in Kruti Dev, Chanakya or older Shree-Lipi fonts. Older Tamil material is often in non-Unicode fonts such as Bamini. These fonts draw the right shapes on top of ordinary English keyboard codes: in Kruti Dev, भारत is stored as the letters "Hkkjr". The document looks perfect on the computer that made it. Paste it into an app or a test engine, though, and students see strings of Latin letters and symbols.

Convert everything to Unicode before you upload it, and have a teacher who reads the language proofread a sample from every file. Converters slip on conjuncts and vowel signs, and one misplaced sign can change a word, sometimes the answer. Scanned PDFs are a separate problem. Nothing in them can be searched or reused in a test, and they are far heavier than typed notes. Retype the notes you will keep using for years.

Then look at the result on a cheap phone. Devanagari needs generous line height, or the matras above the line get clipped in tight layouts. Tamil and Malayalam words run long, so buttons and menu labels that fit in English get cut off. Set the phone's font size to large and check again, because some of your students will have done exactly that.

Bilingual mocks: both versions on screen, one answer key

In a bilingual booklet, students see both versions of a question and can glance at one to check the other. Many online test screens offer a language switch instead, which hides the second version. That suits a student who reads only one language. For prelims mocks, show both versions together, one under the other, with an option to hide either. It is closer to the booklet, and it builds the habit of checking a confusing translation.

Keep both languages inside one question with one answer key. Two separate papers drift apart: a corrected key reaches one and not the other, and the rank list splits in two. When you compare test series software, check how it stores the second language before you look at anything else.

For translation, use a teacher who teaches in both languages, and take terms from the commission's own past papers. They are the best glossary you have, because they hold the exact words students will see on exam day. Machine translation can give you a first draft of a GK question. Polity and economy terms need the most checking, since a loose translation there teaches students the wrong word.

Typed answers for practice, handwritten pages for Mains

Typing in Indian scripts is no longer a barrier. Phone keyboards handle the major scripts, with transliteration and voice input. On Windows, Microsoft added phonetic keyboards for ten Indian languages, including Hindi, Marathi, Tamil and Bangla, in the May 2019 update to Windows 10. Typed doubts, short answers and daily current-affairs answers are realistic for most students.

Mains is a different matter. State PSC Mains papers are written by hand in an answer booklet, and in Tamil Nadu each general studies paper runs for three hours. Typing practice builds none of what that needs. Handwriting speed, a feel for how an answer sits on the page and the stamina to keep writing until the bell only come from writing by hand. Let students type daily practice if they like, but make every weekly Mains test handwritten on paper, photographed and uploaded.

Uploads are where patchy data bites. A phone photo of one page can run to a few megabytes, so a twelve-page answer can fail halfway on a weak signal. The app should shrink photos before sending them, keep pages in order and resume where it stopped. Try it with a real student on a real connection before you announce the programme.

Evaluation capacity follows language. A Marathi answer needs an evaluator who reads Marathi well, and you can't borrow one from the Hindi batch in a busy week. As an example, a batch of 150 students writing one answer a day, six days a week, sends in 900 answers a week. At 15 answers an hour, that is 60 evaluator-hours every week, in one language. Do this sum for each language before you promise a 48-hour turnaround.

Rajasthan's district count shows how quickly state GK goes stale

State GK is the part students pay a local institute for. Rajasthan had 33 districts until 2023, when 17 new ones took it to 50. On 28 December 2024 the state cabinet dissolved nine of them, leaving 41 districts and seven divisions. A question bank, lecture or PDF made in any of those years can carry a wrong answer that nobody notices until a student loses a mark.

Build for that churn. Record state GK in short modules, one topic each, so a changed fact means re-recording ten minutes, not a two-hour lecture. Teach the concept on video and keep counts, names and figures in the PDF notes, which you can correct in minutes. Review the state modules every year after the state budget and economic survey, and again after any reorganisation. When you fix something, send the batch a notification, so students who downloaded the old PDF know to fetch the new one.

Plan for a full phone on mobile data

Say a student in Sikar studies on an entry-level Android phone shared with family, with storage full of WhatsApp media and no home Wi-Fi. Plan the whole online batch around that phone first.

Video size is bitrate multiplied by duration. At about 2 megabits per second, a reasonable 720p setting, one hour of lecture comes to about 900 MB. At 0.5 megabits per second, enough for a slide-and-voice lecture at a lower resolution, the same hour is about 225 MB. Offer a low-quality download, make it the default on mobile data, and design slides with large text so they stay readable at that size. If your app downloads only on Wi-Fi by default, change it, because the student in our example has none.

For live classes, audio matters more than the picture. A lecture where the video freezes but the voice stays clear is still a lecture, so spend on a decent microphone before a better camera. Send the slides as a PDF before class, and get the recording into the course the same day for students whose connection dropped. If you are tempted to run paid batches on YouTube to save money, read our note on whether unlisted YouTube videos are safe for paid courses first.

Before launch, sit with an entry-level phone and a prepaid SIM, away from the office Wi-Fi, and work through these checks:

1. Install the app over mobile data, log in, and time how long the first screen takes.
   
   
2. Open a lecture, a PDF and a bilingual test in your state's script, and look for clipped or broken letters.
   
   
3. Download a one-hour lecture at the lowest quality and check its size.
   
   
4. Start a 30-minute test, switch on aeroplane mode for a minute halfway through, then finish and submit.
   
   
5. Photograph a six-page handwritten answer and upload it on a weak signal.
   
   
6. Search for a lecture by typing its title in the regional script.
   
   
7. Set the font size to large and repeat the second check.
   
   

Most of this work happens before any software is involved: converting old notes, building a glossary from past papers and finding an evaluator for each language. Once it is done, Upclass puts courses, online test series and Mains answer-writing evaluation in one branded app in your institute's name, on Android, iOS, Windows and Mac. See how it fits BPSC, MPPSC, RAS or TNPSC batches on our State PSC coaching page. Or book a demo, bring a page of your converted notes and look at it on the cheapest phone in your office.

Frequently asked questions

Can TNPSC Mains answers be written partly in Tamil and partly in English?

No, except where the paper specifically allows it. TNPSC's instructions to candidates say the whole examination must be written in Tamil or in English, and an answer book that mixes them will be invalidated. Technical words that can't be translated may stay in the other language.

Is a YouTube channel enough to run a state PSC batch?

For free lectures that bring in students, yes. For a paid batch, no. Links get forwarded, you can't control who watches, and there is nowhere to run a bilingual mock or return an evaluated answer. The setup we see work is free content on YouTube and the paid batch in your own app.

How do we convert Kruti Dev notes to Unicode?

Run them through a Kruti Dev to Unicode converter, then have a Hindi teacher proofread a sample from every file before uploading. Converters make mistakes with conjuncts and vowel signs, and those errors are easy to miss on screen. Keep the Unicode files as your master copy from then on and stop editing the old ones.

Which phone should we test a state PSC app on?

An entry-level Android phone on mobile data, with storage that is nearly full. That is closer to what many of your students carry than the phone on your desk. Test lectures, PDFs, bilingual tests and answer uploads on it, away from the office Wi-Fi.