Pandemic now seems a distant past and schools seem to have moved on. The landscape for EdTech companies continues to remain buoyant even though the business models are undergoing a change, keeping in mind the prevailing context, and EdTech companies are recalibrating their business operations in post pandemic times.
South and South East Asia have seen a rapid growth in the number of EdTech companies over the past five years with around 10,000+ firms operating at different stages of lifecycle. India leads the number and hosts around 8,700 EdTech companies.
There seems to be a definite pivot in the teaching learning process which is now veering towards learning- centric models. Digital products and services are now being adopted across all the realms of schooling including fee collection, admissions, front office communication, transportation, teaching tools in the classroom etc. This would also mean cross over to integrated solutions instead of stand-alone. Technology can assist schools across its spectrum of operations. A simple case in point is the online parent-teacher meeting which gave immense benefits including saving of commute time for parents, personalized interaction through private space, real time accessibility to schools and also helped parents to become immersive in the child’s learning journey.
Some progressive schools have ensured the capabilities of online are not completely discarded and they continue to use it to their advantage. The beauty of utilizing hybrid mode is further realized when it blends with the contextual requirements of the school. It can overcome the geographical challenges for a school, for e.g. the best subject matter expertise can be made available through digital mode.
It has the ability to help a school to assess its comfort zone and blind spots. The market is still untouched and Ed tech companies combined in India have penetrated less than 5%. Undoubtedly, the pandemic has pushed forward the entire use case for digitalization and technology deployment. Even though India has the largest number of schools, a large spectrum of schools are extremely nascent in terms of their digital journey. A closer examination of the progressive schools who have understood the power of utilizing technology diligently is still minuscule. On an average even in these progressive schools the average number of digital tools utilized by the teachers would still be lesser by 20 times in comparison to USA teacher fraternity’s utilization of the digital tools.
Digital penetration would make immense headway through multiple approaches including NEP implementation enhancing digital competencies of the school leaders and teachers and providing EdTech solutions which are meaningful and contextual to the school’s aspirations and capabilities. It would require to address the eco system needs to bring about the transformation. India is a shining light for the world when it comes to technology usage and becoming an innovation hub. Deeper play of technology across schools is emerging possibility, however, would require the collective might of all the key stake holders to make it happen.
