Nov302020
Posted by:admin
Booming Edtech amid the Covid times
India’s ed-tech space is one of the largest in the world, with over 5000 start-ups launched within the last 5 years in this space, ranging from pre-K to Higher Education and beyond. This industry has seen a surge of investments and even entry of various multinational players, further propagated by the acceptance of technology in the Government policies.
Further, COVID-19 pandemic led lockdown has created a gamut of opportunities for the education technology innovators with a very high adoption rate (albeit forced), but at the same time, is facing various challenges as well, especially for traditional education entities to adapt to the ‘new normal’. Also, creation and dissemination of quality content, access to technology & platforms and high-speed internet have created challenges for a quick transition to these online solutions.
A webinar, organized by CASPIAN Debt on 24th of September, 2020 discussed “Booming EdTech amid the pandemic” with investors and entrepreneurs having vast experience in the education domain. Panelists include:
- Chitra Ravi, Founder & CEO, Chrysalis
- Girish Singhania, Founder & CEO, EduBridge Learning
- Nirav Khambati, Partner, Kaizenvest
- Vishal Bharat, Founder & Director, CBA Capital
The webinar was moderated by Ragini Bajaj Chaudhary, Director, Strategic Initiatives at Caspian Debt.
The highlights of the Webinar are summarized below:
17.8% of the world’s population lives in India, with a median age of 28, and around 29% below 14 years highlighting that the Indian Education space is one of the largest education, skilling and employability sector in the world and hence has attracted a lot of attention. At the same time, it has not matured as a sector in terms of investment and profitability performance. Before the COVID pandemic struck, the country was grappling with the digital divide, with only 14% of rural population having any digital access or only 13% using internet. While COVID has accelerated use of technology in education, it has also challenged the sector.
“The path of the future education has to be tread carefully while we keep the child and childhood at the center” Chitra Ravi
With this situation at hand, the panelists discussed how various business changes have been brought about, e.g., for EduBridge, the change, couldn’t have been more drastic. An entity which provides skill development and employment linkages for unemployed youth of the country, was always tinkering with the idea of doing online training, even ran a few pilots but the results were never that satisfying for them to take the call of going digital. However, with the pandemic, they were able to put together an entirely digital learning platform, built the online training engine and designed it to meet the student needs, with a focus on outcomes, as placement is a very objective and clear outcome of their model. Chrysalis, an entity focused on providing content infused with 21st century skills for Kindergarten to eighth grade, the reality was very different, given their target customers were affordable private schools, who have limited resources to access online education. On one hand they had challenges of connectivity and infrastructure, on the other hand the lack of exposure to online learning for both teachers and parents. Lack of visibility of, the outcomes in education compared to skilling/employability modes also makes it much harder to get a buy in.
However, from the experience shared in both the cases, it was evident, that the target audience, even from marginalized segments of the society, were willing to embrace online learning, and even saw attendance rates similar to the offline physical classroom model.
The challenges faced in the transition were quite a few, starting from the ideological dilemmas, given the age group of students and the imposed screen time limitations, re-training of the teachers, lack of peer-to-peer learning, focus on engaging content development with the objective of not only achieving the learning outcomes but also developmental outcomes. From a business standpoint, with the online access, the time devoted to classroom/direct learning per day has come down, as content has been compressed with the focus on keeping the screen time within bounds., It has created opportunity to explore other dimensions to the teaching methodology. On the other hand, they have also been able to experiment with the teacher student ratio – with several possibilities from one to many and one-on-one interaction. At the same time, now the parents are also involved in everyday learning with the student, and thus, along with student engagement, they also have to focus on parent engagement. This is where the teacher’s capability to keep the student engaged, parent motivated continues to play the central role in the current scenario of online learning.
“Before the pandemic, everybody looked at technology with the half glass empty mindset. This is not available, and that is not available, and this is not working and that is not working. After the pandemic, everybody looks at it with the half glass full attitude” Nirav Khambati
The investors on the panel also agreed that Education delivery models in India are quite diverse across socio-economic groups and across various stages of the learning. While various companies in their portfolios have also seen great tractions, many entities, due to the pandemic have had to turn around their models and are making more revenues now than ever before, and even the ones that are not doing so well, have at least been able to support their linked customer segment and keep themselves afloat.
While the ed-tech companies in their portfolios have never had a better day, there is a story beyond just technology, the story of the other extreme, the K-8 schools, catering to lower and lower-middle income segments have nearly lost their income, as their customers (parents) have lost their livelihoods. Various such entities are leaning towards technology more out of desperation rather than the love and acceptance of technology. Nonetheless, this segment of affordable private schools has contributed significantly to the education revolution in the country and if they fail, it would be a huge step backwards for Indian education.
Deliberating on the role that technology will be able to play in the future, after the pandemic, the audience as well as panelists opined that the use of technology is expected to increase multifold. As education is getting more experiential and skill oriented, and issues around connectivity are gradually getting addressed, it is believed that blended learning will be the way to go, while ‘on the campus’ will remain intact, but with a premium.
Another area of interesting innovations is expected to be around the vernacular content development – as more consumers are switching from nearby tutor to online tutor, with a focus of quality. The growth in reach of technology will certainly increase the demand for vernacular learning content.
As education is a highly regulated space, the panel also discussed the role of the government, especially in the wake of the new National Education Policy. The reforms suggested in the policy especially focus on early child education, change in assessment system and mainstreaming vocational education were particularly welcomed. An attempt to remove the stigma around non-degree programs can go a long way in improving the employability divide in the country. The panel agreed that focus should be on learning outcomes rather than measuring the physical attendance of candidates. To achieve the learning outcomes, it will be important to ensure that education delivered online is engaging to keep the learner motivated. Going online doesn’t only mean digitalizing physical content but ensuring that it is adapted to the medium of delivery.
“My Concern is around how the government will play this entire scenario out in terms of the regulations. While my biggest hope is the fact that the learner, even from marginalized background has seen the possibility of online education.” Girish Singhania
Looking at future possibilities and entrepreneurial opportunities, Ed-Tech space certainly holds lot of potential. Now that even the excluded learners have seen the potential of online education, and if government policies remain conducive, there is space for many more entrepreneurs to enter and create options for the huge addressable market. Also, the learnings from the Indian context would find a strong acceptance even overseas.
“A Very significant trend that we think will break because of COVID – this social ethos that if you are not STEM focused, it’s not a career. The era of 21st Century skills is here. E.g. moderating online groups was the single biggest job created, with likes of Facebook, WhatsApp, Instagram hiring over 130,000 people worldwide last year alone – chat room moderators, with over 50% of them were psychologists and English majors.” – Vishal Bharat
From investment opportunities view, the focus will remain on blended models, with the school playing the very important role as the social place in the life & development of a child, while technology acts as an enabler leading to a more holistic and well-rounded development. At the same time, the activities in the ed-tech space are also leading to more consolidation conversations and overall excitement in the larger deals exists. It may be of note, that even with the huge discussions and investments, education is still not even 4% of the overall developmental investments globally, unlike sectors like climate change, and thus there is a huge opportunity to bring education to top priority given its importance for our future generations.
As a note to all potential entrepreneurs in the education space, the panel pointed out that the focus of technology should be to reduce the work of the teacher, not add to her burden. If every ed-tech entrepreneur can understand this nuance and help teacher achieve her role as “Guru” and give due respect to the teacher that is when the country would be headed to a great future.
To conclude, pandemic has provided a huge opportunity to ed-tech players across the board. While adoption of technology has been hastened, digital divide in India has left many learners behind. The future of ed-tech is in blended models, with engaging, vernacular content, with scope for innovation in delivery and measuring learning outcomes. The winning models will be solving problems both of access and quality and are likely to attract investments.
This blog is based on the discussions at the Webinar “Booming Edtech amid the Covid Times” organized by Caspian Debt. You can watch the recording of the webinar here.