Scope Of Ed-Tech To Become More Mainstream In The Near Future
Devvaki Aggarwal, Founder & CEO, instrucko, 0
Edtech has been an emerging sector in India over the past decade. The last two years have seen a sudden uprise in demand, and multiple EdTech players have introduced all kinds of classes online, which has made it easy for parents to access more content, teachers, and courses of their choice. As per the latest stats, over 4,450 EdTech startups have been launched in India between January 2014 and September 2019. By 2025, it is estimated that EdTech products & services will have more than 37 million paid users.
According to Redseer's report, India's EdTech sector is estimated to become a $30 billion industry by 2030. `Unleashing EdTech Potential in India' estimates the current industry size between $2.75-3 billion. This report also suggests a sturdy growth in the K-12 segment, which will see a 6.3x increase by 2022 from 2019.
Having said that, India happens to be among the top three countries in the world after China and the US to obtain venture capital funding in the EdTech sector. India's EdTech space has attracted private equity investments of around $4 billion in the last five years. All these numbers show a swift growth in the `online education industry'. Schools have been forced to move online and therefore have had to either partner with different EdTech companies or create their own digitised content.
All this has resulted in a dire need of revamping the old rote learning methodology and adopting the new practises of learning that are centred around the child's growth. EdTech is paving the way for a far more structured education system, which is measurable, tailorable and accountable. Parents are now more aware of the curriculum, what's going on in other parts of the world, and what they need to enhance their child's career path.
Today, more and more parents are comfortable with having their children learn online. Some have even chosen to adopt home-schooling, which was never the case previously. The pandemic has brought a sense of awareness and urgency in this space with respect to the archaic curriculum and teaching methods. It has now become a dire need to move away from the traditional ways of learning and upgrade the content, curriculum and create courses that will focus on tomorrow's jobs. EdTech has given rise to allowing children to upskill and grow in a personalized learning environment. That is where instrucko has carved its niche with a focus on language learning, and more importantly, communication skills that will enable learners to land top jobs based on interview skills, fluency and presentation skills.
The main idea is to define learning objectives for children and introduce them to a global curriculum. These courses are aimed to equip learners with better career opportunities. The key should be to focus on the content and the quality of lessons being taught. Digitisation has made it easy to personalise learning and ensure each learner is reaching his maximum potential. Children have access to the best content and teachers without having to spend copious amounts of money by going abroad and getting an international degree.
EdTech has given rise to allowing children to upskiling and growing in a personalized learning environment for the very first time, while also allowing parents to compare the quality of learning between their local schools vs. the international accredited and qualified teachers that instrucko provides. While everything works in the favour of EdTech, there is a caveat, and that is infrastructure. The government must support the infrastructure for EdTech companies to grow seamlessly. People need to get access to cheaper and faster internet connections to support the online education system. There need to be more provisions created for teachers in order to equip them with the latest technology and teaching methods, as well as much stricter recruitment process of these teachers.
At instrucko, we vet all of our teachers and recruit an average of one in 100 applicants to ensure we maintain the highest quality. The old curriculum has been outgrown and so have the old teaching methods. As EdTech becomes more `mainstream', the argument will further the debates on Online vs. Physical in-school learning. Both areas have their benefits and their drawbacks. Online learning gives you the highest quality of content and teachers from around the world, whilst in school children and teacher interaction cannot be replaced. Both areas are complimentary to one another, and it is integral for governments and the larger institutions to ensure that this complimentary offering can be provided, which will ultimately play a pivotal role in EdTech becoming mainstream. Online learning can be in small groups or even one to one, whereas schools the average teacher to student ratio in India is 1:24. This jeopardises the learning pedagogy.
We understand the importance of schools in the children's learning journey and have therefore created our content in a way, which is suitable for physical schools to deliver and essentially form part of their curriculum. Focus on such areas will allow physical schools to utilise their existing infrastructure and bolt on international curricula will see continued growth in EdTech.
As the Indian education market grows and online & offline education becomes more accessible, it is essential for schools/governments and online education companies to maintain the highest quality of education. India can only do that by drawing on experiences from across the world and ensure that as the demand is serviced and the infrastructure is in place to deploy it successfully.
EdTech has given rise to allowing children to upskiling and growing in a personalized learning environment for the very first time, while also allowing parents to compare the quality of learning between their local schools vs. the international accredited and qualified teachers that instrucko provides. While everything works in the favour of EdTech, there is a caveat, and that is infrastructure. The government must support the infrastructure for EdTech companies to grow seamlessly. People need to get access to cheaper and faster internet connections to support the online education system. There need to be more provisions created for teachers in order to equip them with the latest technology and teaching methods, as well as much stricter recruitment process of these teachers.
Online learning gives you the highest quality of content and teachers from around the world, whilst in school children and teacher interaction cannot be replaced
At instrucko, we vet all of our teachers and recruit an average of one in 100 applicants to ensure we maintain the highest quality. The old curriculum has been outgrown and so have the old teaching methods. As EdTech becomes more `mainstream', the argument will further the debates on Online vs. Physical in-school learning. Both areas have their benefits and their drawbacks. Online learning gives you the highest quality of content and teachers from around the world, whilst in school children and teacher interaction cannot be replaced. Both areas are complimentary to one another, and it is integral for governments and the larger institutions to ensure that this complimentary offering can be provided, which will ultimately play a pivotal role in EdTech becoming mainstream. Online learning can be in small groups or even one to one, whereas schools the average teacher to student ratio in India is 1:24. This jeopardises the learning pedagogy.
We understand the importance of schools in the children's learning journey and have therefore created our content in a way, which is suitable for physical schools to deliver and essentially form part of their curriculum. Focus on such areas will allow physical schools to utilise their existing infrastructure and bolt on international curricula will see continued growth in EdTech.
As the Indian education market grows and online & offline education becomes more accessible, it is essential for schools/governments and online education companies to maintain the highest quality of education. India can only do that by drawing on experiences from across the world and ensure that as the demand is serviced and the infrastructure is in place to deploy it successfully.