Two years later, four unicorns and one big corn emerged, and the Edtech industry is in trouble. India’s EdTech market is saturated with about 4,500 start-ups. When the students returned to school, a crack in the Edtech business surfaced shortly after the pandemic.
Although the Indian edtech industry is estimated to reach a market size of US $ 10.4 billion by 2025, some major edtech companies have fired hundreds of employees.
Edtech is at a crossroads. Their business model is collapsing because their products couldn’t generate excitement in the classroom. Success has been measured by the number of customers, not by learning the results. Currently, there is no external verification of the effectiveness of Edtech’s teaching methods. The truth is that Edtechs doesn’t really use technology to make learning fun. This can help improve learning outcomes.
Need more than a new shiny bottle
Consider the case of learning content. Is it more often the case with old wines in new colorful and shiny bottles? Content is simply digitized, without context or student involvement. Ideally, the content should be based on an understanding of the student’s learning style. Edtechs needs to listen to teachers, parents and other stakeholders to find out which products work and which don’t, rather than assuming what’s best for students and teachers. there is.
This rarely happens. The Edtech industry is for sale as a private online lesson center that can improve school performance. Most Edtech content duplicates the physical classroom that teachers are reading from textbooks. An interactive approach that actively engages students in individual and group learning is much more effective. Classroom management tools such as screen sharing help teachers better teach their students. Gamification is another way to improve student engagement by using storytelling and characters that involve students. You can use artificial intelligence and machine learning to personalize your content according to your student’s needs.
A true measure of success
More student involvement improves student outcomes. Education is different from other businesses where only sales and profits are important. In education, the most important indicator of product success is improving student performance. We need a way to track, quantify, and monitor learning outcomes. If it does not improve learning outcomes, the product is a failure. We need an effective monitoring and rating system that tells us if the product has improved student performance.
Track and improve
Tracking and monitoring learning outcomes is absolutely necessary to know if a product has worked. You need to know where your students are in the process of learning and what can help them improve their outcomes. The data can be useful here. This can be used to identify where students are placed against a set benchmark. This is easy to achieve because the classroom allows teachers to be physically present and directly measure the impact of the lesson. On the Edtech platform, tools such as data analysis allow teachers to track student behavior while using the platform. It will tell you how the course will affect your students’ grades. Data on student grades can be effectively used in Edtech to adapt to students’ learning abilities.
Teacher first
School closure during the COVID-19 pandemic was a breakthrough moment for education and Edtech. During the COVID-19 pandemic, teachers faced a stressful period of having to learn new technologies and maintain student interest. During the pandemic, teachers used Edtech effectively, but they still need to find ways to train and motivate them. We must regain pride in teaching. Frequent interaction with teachers is one way to motivate them.
Go to the scale
Another issue with Edtech is scalability. So far, edtechs has targeted wealthy customers in Tier-1 cities. According to a PWC report, 87% of India’s population lives in Tier 2 and later cities, and if multilingual personalized content can be developed, Edtech players will gain a large presence in unpenetrated cities. I can do it. While doing so, we must consider the restrictions of local schools. Because they serve a significant portion of their students and often serve those who have the least access to quality materials. From the teacher’s point of view, you need to understand what a rural school is, a multi-grade classroom with no roof, no fans, closed windows. All Edtech solutions need to be based on an understanding of the local environment. For example, when children work in the fields, there is a very high degree of absenteeism. We have to figure out how to deal with this.
This is a challenge to be solved, as Edtech is expected to play an important role in education. The growing Internet penetration in India will support the adoption of Edtech. According to the IAMAI-Kantar ICUBE 2020 report, India’s active Internet users are expected to increase by 45% from 622 million users in 2020 to 900 million users by 2025 due to high adoption rates in rural India. doing. A small town will make up two in five active Internet users in the country. If you understand the constraints and provide the right solution, there is a great opportunity at the bottom of the pyramid and you can take advantage of it. But keep in mind that education can never be a novel business.
Source: techiemag.co.uk
