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Despite growth, there is still a lot of headroom for further innovations
Edtech or edutech — or employing technology to meet the growing demand of providing learning or education related solutions — has recently seen a lot of interest and traction in India, especially in the startup ecosystem. Whether it is learning a new language, or supplementing a full-fledged K-12 education, or supporting higher education, new age startups are helping bring multiple stakeholders — learners, tutors, content providers, parents — in the value network together through their technology-led solutions.
According to the India Brand Equity Foundation (IBEF), India has nearly 1.5 million schools, with over 200 million students enrolled. In addition, more than 36,000 institutes exist for providing higher education, making India one of the largest higher education systems in the world, with over 70 million students enrolled.
Despite this, there is still a lot of headroom for further growth and development. The government has launched a number of initiatives to further skill development and education in the country by increasing budgetary outlays, through public private partnership models to establish higher learning educational institutes, and flagship programs such as the Pradhan Mantri Kaushal Vikas Yojna, National Skill Development Mission, and the National Policy for Skill Development and Entrepreneurship 2015.
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At the same time, while increasing enrolment continues to be an objective, improving learning outcomes and efficacy of learning programs is increasingly in focus, especially for government schools where a majority of students are enrolled. All these underline the growing importance — and acceptance of this importance — of learned and trained human resources in furthering the growth of the country.
A scalable and sustainable education infrastructure will be a key contributor to achieving these objectives, self-learning will play a significant role in the coming years, and non-government actors are expected to pull their weight by bringing in disruptive enablers.
Here are some trends that we can expect to see in 2017 in the edtech sector:
#1 – Assisted learning and use of multimedia in tele-training. More people will use additional modes of learning to complement their primary learning methods, viz. classroom learning. Learners are now increasingly looking at more sources of information — unlike in the past wherein they relied on their textbooks and notes given by teachers in the class or coaching centres.
The success of Wikipedia (which has emerged as the third most-read website globally), after Google and Facebook) and MOOC (massive open online course) platform like Coursera, demonstrates this amply. Platforms that are able to provide credible information to readers, and not focusing solely on making money from transactions, will definitely rule the internet.
#2 – Learning in their own language. With the advent of technology and the worldwide web being available to everyone and in the language that they are most comfortable in, people will be increasingly attracted to the online medium to gain knowledge. As per the data shared by Indian Languages Digital Festival (ILDF) organised in Mar 2016:
- India has 957 million telecom users. Each month, 8-10 million Indians connect to the internet for the first time, mostly through a mobile phone.
- Facebook has 100 million users in India, of which 85 percent access the social networking site via mobile. Especially in rural India, where teledensity has massive headroom for growth, users will more than quadruple in 4 years’ time.
- Over 54 percent of all Internet users in India will be over the age of 25, of which 40 to 50 per cent will be in rural areas.
- Nearly 30 per cent will be women.
- Nearly 90 per cent will access the Internet through a mobile device.
This means that rural population has started taking to the Internet in droves. However, most of these new users will be challenged for fluency in English, and will prefer their native language for ease of understanding and comfort with the learning solutions. Digital solutions, led by good translation services to make learning content available in local languages is the need of the hour. The Digital India initiative will further accelerate the demand for such translation services.
#3 – Indian content available online is chiefly in English, and a very small percentage of this is translated into any Indian language. To bring a change, we need a good translation solution to deliver the available content in local languages. With government’s latest initiative, Digital India, in action. the demand for quick translation services for digital content is going to increase.
#4 – Rise of smartphones and other digital enablers for education. India has clearly leapfrogged desktops and laptops and directly joined the mobile-first bandwagon. Most of the education content will have to be mobile-friendly, since the next 300 million people expected to join the internet will access it over their phones.
As per a report by IAMAI and KPMG, “The number of mobile Internet users in India is expected to grow to 314 million by the end of 2017 with a compounded annual growth rate (CAGR) of around 28 per cent for the period 2013- 2017.” This growth will be a result of government’s Digital India initiative, along with support from mobile internet ecosystem and innovative content and service offerings from mobile-based services players.
#5 – Use of Big Data and Artificial Intelligence to personalise teaching online. Users of online learning tools will expect greater emphasis on understanding the pace and effectiveness of their progress and professional learning. Data analytics and artificial intelligence will have a significant role to play in shaping the delivery of personalised yet automated feedback and reports to these users.
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#6 – More egalitarian access to learning resources online. Until a few years back, people from Tier II and III cities had to migrate to bigger towns, or else they were forced to let go of their dreams because of unavailability of training and coaching facilities in their small towns. This is going to change very quickly. As per the president of the UPSC students’ association in Pune, there has been a drop in the number of students going to traditional coaching classes recently. Many of the students prefer to invest in mobile apps, than incurring stay and coaching expenses in metros or other cities.
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This is an article contribution from Vipin Agarwal and Bhola Ram Meena, Founders of OnlineTyari.
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The post Innovating India: Here are 6 emerging edtech trends to watch for in 2017 appeared first on e27.
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