EDTECH IN INDIA- THROUGH OUR LENS
IS IT A HYPE OR REALITY?
How many times have we come across advertisements on education around the concept of education made easy, coding at early ages, or celebrities encouraging education on the pretext of their kids using the service? How many times have we considered it necessary? Is it the reality or just a hype? Are they exploiting the parent’s quest for the wellbeing of his/her child?
Four decades ago, If a child opted for supplementary tuition, it was considered a weakness. Today it has become a business by itself with 67% of students going for tuition and coaching classes in addition to schooling. On top of it, EdTech is taking its prominence. Why was there a paradigm shift in the number of students needing extra coaching?
The answer to this has three aspects-
- Excessive competition and expectations among students and parents
- Gradual deterioration in mainstream education
- Convenience through technology (anywhere anytime)
This has resulted in a surge of EdTech companies in India such as Byju’s, Upgrad, Toppr, Unacademy, Vedantu, etc. who are eyeing the 360 million Indian learners base. Predominantly they aim for the K12 (73% or 262 million). India as a country has further complexity where 70% (252 million) are rural students, Government schools constitute 56% (almost 200 million), but only 24% (86 million) are students who study in English-medium school.
For a typical student in this new era, mainstream school fee coupled with coaching classes fee which further coupled with EdTech choice of learning is making the education fee sky-rocket. While this disruption gives plenty of opportunities for the student, it is certainly deepening economic disparities.
With such enablers in place, are we confident that the quality of education is at its best now? Or is it just too many cooks spoiling the broth? We have gone from analysing the overall result of the school before selecting it, to analysing results of coaching classes and now to analysing celebrity driven advertisements. Is this how we are planning to move forward? Unless we address the core problem of quality of teachers, archaic method of teaching and infrastructure, we will not be in a position to improve the overall quality of education.
COVID has been a blessing in disguise for these EdTech companies and has helped them increase their subscriptions by leaps and bounds. On a positive note, remote education to rural students can be a boon as long as the language barrier is broken. Currently we are witnessing EdTech congestion only in English-medium students.
Today we are moving from packaged education to modular education, which enables varied certifications. This is, in a way, a healthy process for continuous learning. Whether we support it or not, EdTech, with the overall investment of over 5 billion in India, is going to stay and be the new way of educational living, as it exploits the technological possibilities of learning and marketing driven education. By when will they get their investments back or whether they’ll get it back, only time can tell so.
“I never teach my pupils, I only attempt to provide the conditions in which they can learn.”
-Einstein
“The function of education is to teach one to think intensively and to think critically. Intelligence plus character — that is the goal of true education.”
-Dr. Martin Luther King Jr
Signing off,
A Balaji & B Shrinidhi
