Posted by AGORACOM-JC
at 1:42 PM on Friday, May 24th, 2019
4 weeks ago we interviewed BetterU (BTRU:TSXV) CEO Brad Loiselle from his head office in Ottawa with the title “BetterU On The Move In India With Partnerships, Products and Personnel†Â
2 weeks ago we interviewed him again from India where he and Gurmit Singh were on a whirlwind tour of meetings with large potential customers
Today, we finished our BTRU tour with Brad in London and, specifically, in the back seat of a good old black cab as he raced for the airport after his final meeting. He simply couldn’t wait to be back in Ottawa on Monday because – as you can see from his energy – it appears the trip went exceedingly well from a customer acquisition point of view as Brad expects to be closing meaningful deals in the very near future. Moreover, the London meetings were tied to financing pitches with VERY big family offices. Â
This last few weeks has put a new light on BTRU, with significant advances in product and personnel, which appear to be preparing for highly anticipated new customers. Only time will tell but how many CEO’s would be speaking with their shareholders from 3 different countries over the last 4 weeks if they weren’t feeling pretty confident? Â
Grab a coffee, watch this great interview with Brad Loiselle and let us know what you think.
Education in India has improved dramatically over the last three
decades. Schools have become accessible to most children; both student
enrollment and attendance are at the highest level.
The RTE Act guarantees a quality education to a wider range of
students than ever before. However, challenges in teaching and learning
outcomes across all regional, cultural and socioeconomic subsets prevent
us from harnessing the true potential of vast human resource and keep
the country educationally backward.
One of the biggest concerns is to make the present generation
learners future-ready. India is relatively young as a nation with around
28 million youth population being added every year. In 2020, the
average age of an Indian is expected to be 29 years, while it will be 37
for China and 48 for Japan.
However, India’s high youth population won’t be of help to the economy if universal education is not achieved all over India.
Improving education is a critical area of investment and can be a game changer to achieve sustained economic growth by tap into its young workforce. The weak foundation in primary education derails the lives, careers, and productivity of millions of our citizens. With 65 per cent of the population residing in rural India, education in rural belt truly deserves much more attention.
Annual Status of Education Report (ASER) shows that even though the
number of rural students attending schools is rising, but more than half
of the students in fifth grade are unable to read a second grade text
book and are not able to solve simple mathematical problems. Not only
this, the level of math and reading is further declining. Some of the
major problems that plague the rural education system in India are
related to both quality and access of teaching learning facilities and
basic infrastructure. While dearth of teachers, teacher absenteeism and
poor quality of teaching are directly affecting the learning outcomes,
poor and inadequate infrastructural facilities in terms of classrooms
and benches, blackboards, playgrounds, toilets, water, etc, also hamper
the delivery of quality education and make the school unattractive to a
child.
The foundation to turn India into a strong nation has to be laid down
at primary and rural levels and so the quality of education right from
the beginning should be excellent. A complete reform in education system
is required which should start from policies which promote talent in
teaching system. Teachers are the backbone of education.
All efforts should be made to hire the best teachers, keep them
engaged and motivated, reduce their absenteeism by making them more
accountable and provide regular in-service training and capacity
building to upgrade their skills. To improve the student’s attendance
in the schools, especially in villages, the school curriculum should
involve extracurricular activities and fun-learning exercises. Education
and text books should be made interesting. Textbooks related to their
culture, their traditions and values should also be there so as to
create their interest in studies.
The reasons behind so many drop-outs in spite of free education should be found out as this is a hurdle on the road to progress. Sensitizing
parents to make them understand the importance of education would
certainly be helpful. This can be done through skits, street plays and
holding meetings with the parents on a quarterly basis to make a student
excel in his life. Emphasis should be given to educating a girl.
Though girl education has improved in our country a lot has to be done in this sector. In
this digital era when technology is touching every aspect of society
and changing it dramatically, rural education can also greatly benefit
from appropriate use of technology. Smart Classrooms which facilitate
online teaching create extended classrooms for interactions and
discussions. An expanded option is to record classroom courses in a real
time and use it for teaching the students who cannot attend the
classes. Rural education needs e-learning technologies. Apart from this,
audio and video conferencing should be made part of the education
system in rural India.
Teachers at the schools are not well equipped with the gadgets. So
teachers should be given printers, laptops, for giving notes and notices
to the students. By using technology the problem of unqualified
teachers can also be solved. Dropout rates have reduced to a great
extent wherever digital and computer-aided education has been introduced
in rural schools.
Several initiatives in public private partnerships are playing
significant role in making rural India tech savvy and in providing
better education. These efforts have given positive results. We have to
take proper remedial measures with a sense of urgency and create better
learning environments for rural children so that they are able to
participate in nation building process and reap the full potential of
our demographic divided.
Authored article by Dr Neelam Gupta President and CEO AROH Foundation
Edtech startup Cialfo raises USD 3 million Series A round
By Robin Moh
College application platform Cialfo raised USD 3 million in a Series A funding round led by DLF Ventures
Other participants include Enterprise Singapore’s investment arm SEEDS Capital, YK Capital, and some angel investors.
Singapore-based college application platform Cialfo raised USD 3 million in a Series A funding round led by DLF Ventures. Other participants include Enterprise Singapore’s investment arm SEEDS Capital, YK Capital, and some angel investors.
According to Cialfo’s press statement, the startup has raised more
than USD 5 million to date; a figure which Cialfo thinks makes it
Singapore’s best-funded education technology startup. Proceeds of this
round will be used to support the company’s expansion in the US.
Stanley Chia, Rohan Pasari and William Hund founded Cialfo in 2012.
The Singaporean company provides a technology platform that combines the
functionalities of social messaging, task management, and Dropbox to
simplify university applications by allowing for quick communication and
sharing of documents among consultants, teachers, and students. Parents
can also receive automated responses from the system.
The education technology company began by charging for
personalization and consultation services; the platform is free to use.
However, when the three co-founders later added a software-as-a-service
(SaaS) business model, where Cialfo sells tech-enabled services to
customers from countries such as India, China, Vietnam, Cambodia, and
Mongolia.
The company has since sold its consultancy arm to another Singapore-based provider, ChangedEdu, in 2017.
Today, Caiflo has offices across the globe in Singapore, New York,
Beijing, and New Delhi. Some of the company’s clients include
India’s Oberoi International School, Singapore’s Hwa Chong Institution,
China’s Beijing No. 4/BHSF, Poland’s American School of Warsaw, and
Netherlands’ School of The Hague.
The company’s current plan is to increase students’ access to quality
American education opportunities regardless of their background.
Posted by AGORACOM-JC
at 11:36 AM on Tuesday, May 14th, 2019
2 weeks ago we interviewed BetterU (BTRU:TSXV) CEO Brad Loiselle from his head office in Ottawa with the title “BetterU On The Move In India With Partnerships, Products and Personnel”
Today, he’s literally on the move as we interview him directly from India where he and Gurmit Singh, the company’s newest addition and Former Managing Director of Yahoo India and CEO Forbes India, are on a whirlwind tour of meetings throughout India where they are presenting BetterU to some very (VERY) large companies and organizations. As you will soon see for yourself, reaction and response to the BetterU Education Marketplace has been excellent, with the company expecting to generate meaningful agreements in the very near future.
The great thing about interviews is that CEO’s can’t hide behind text based corporate jargon. Rather, investors are given a great opportunity to read body language, facial expressions and voice fluctuations to gauge just how confident (or lack thereof) the CEO actually is. I know I do …. and I told Brad on-air that his confidence and happiness was bursting through the screen. Adding to this is the fact that Gurmit Singh was sitting right beside him, without a mic, chiming in some answers, which leads viewers to believe things are going really well.
Naturally, we’ll let you be the final judge. Grab a coffee, watch this great interview with Company CEO, Brad Loiselle and let us know what you think.
“Reskilling and upskilling cannot happen in a classroom. Scaling up education only happens digitally,†Raghav says, adding that lifelong learning is the “keyâ€.
India sees thousands of students graduate from engineering colleges
every year, but very few are trained in the skills that employers
actually need. More than 12 million students graduate every year, and
1.2 million of these are engineers.
According to a March 2019 report by employability assessment company Aspiring Minds, over 80 percent of these engineering graduates are “unemployable for any job in the knowledge economyâ€. The report was based on research conducted in India, China, and the US.
The reasons could be many: theoretical teaching in colleges; lack of
technical, cognitive, and linguistic skills; dearth of skills to work in
new-age jobs, and the absence of proper internships. However, the
proliferation of edtech platforms is slowly bridging the gap of availability of skilled talent.
The many online learning platforms include Mountain View,
California-based Coursera, which sees India as its second largest market
after the US.
“Unfortunately, gross enrolment in higher education in India
is not very good. According to government statistics, 25 percent
children enrol for higher education,†says Raghav Gupta, Director, India
and APAC, Coursera.
But with technology changing the way the world works and this gig
economy here to stay, it’s imperative for India to ensure that students
and graduates have the right skills, and for the workforce to stay up to
speed with modern tools and techniques.
“India is one of the largest regions, in terms of users in the world.
We have four million users and all this happened without any
marketing,†Raghav says.
In a candid interview with YourStory, Raghav Gupta discusses
how Indians are learning, why reskilling is important to stay relevant,
and why AI and Blockchain courses are popular.
“Reskilling and upskilling cannot happen in a classroom.
Scaling up education only happens digitally,†Raghav says, adding that
lifelong learning is the “keyâ€.
One of the most popular courses on Coursera today is data science, which teaches how to mine, analyse, and use data in creative ways to generate business value.
Artificial Intelligence and Blockchain are no longer buzzwords, and the
platform is also working on training students in these modern
technologies. Founder Andrew NG teaches students about AI and technology experts like Don Tapscott teach Blockchain.
Globally, the company works with 1,800 companies that are part of the
Coursera platform. In India, it works with 50 companies, including Axis
Bank, Yes Bank, Infosys, Wipro, Airtel, and Tata Communications. It is
also working with the Andhra Pradesh Skill Development Corporation to
skill 5,000 students, and with 150 colleges in the State. The online
education platform has also tied up with Manipal University.
At present, India has 800 universities, 40,000 colleges, and 30 million students attending college.
A KPMG-Google report released in May 2017 said the online higher
education market is expected to touch $1.96 billion by 2021. Reskilling
and online certification courses currently account for a majority (38
percent) of the online higher education market, the report added.
Raghav Gupta
There are plenty of startups working to help professionals remain
relevant in their industry, including AEON Learning, Udemy, Edureka,
Udacity, and SimpliLearn.
Coursera believes that it is only by reskilling that several Indians
can join industries like banking and telecom, which are going digital as
they traverse into the future. Across the world, 100 million people
have upskilled on the platform. And Coursera is keen to ride this online
learning wave in India as well.
Online Education Provider Coursera Is Now Worth More Than $1 Billion
At Coursera, he’s put the company on a growth trajectory that includes expansion around the world.
After the U.S., Coursera’s greatest growth has come from India, China, Mexico and Brazil, in that order.
Coursera, one of the companies featured on Forbes’ 2018 list of Next Billion-Dollar Startups, is worth well over $1 billion, says its CEO, Jeff Maggioncalda. The seven-year-old online education provider, based in Mountain View, California, announced this morning that it had raised an additional $103 million in funding. “This gives us the resources to more aggressively push on our mission of greater access to quality education and greater opportunity for people who are being left behind in this economy,†he says.
Since our feature story on Coursera
last October, the number of registered learners on the site has climbed
from 36 million to 40 million. When we published, the company had been
valued at $800 million. Its revenue, which Forbes pegged at $140 million
in 2018, is fueled in part by partnerships with 1,800 enterprise
customers. They include Adobe, which paid Coursera an estimated $150,000
last year to provide machine-learning courses to Adobe employees.
Three months ago, Coursera signed a deal with the Abu Dhabi School of Government,
an entity set up to train 60,000 government employees in digital skills
like data science and artificial intelligence. Maggioncalda says that
partnership is Coursera’s most extensive to date.
Coursera also offers 14 online masters degrees,
in computer science, business and public health, from schools like the
University of Michigan and the University of Illinois at
Urbana-Champaign. And it just launched its first online bachelor of
science degree with the highly regarded University of London.
Coursera’s news comes at a time when critics like Kevin Carey,
director of education policy at the liberal-leaning New America
foundation, have raised concerns about the high cost of online degrees.
In a widely-read April article published in the Huffington Post,
headlined “The Creeping Capitalist Takeover of Higher Education,†he
wrote that online education should slash the price of a good degree. But
instead, many schools use online program managers, known as OPMs, to
produce and market their online courses. OPMs charge as much as 60% of
tuition for the service. Students who earn online degrees offered
through OPMs pay the same high tuition as they would if they studied on
campus. “What this means is that an innovation that should have been
used to address inequality is serving to fuel it,†he wrote. (Read
Forbes’ story on 2U, a leading OPM here.)
By contrast, Coursera does no course production and takes only 40% of
tuition. Its marketing costs are low, says Maggioncalda, because it
already reaches a huge number of learners. One example of a low-cost
Coursera degree: its online iMBA from the University of Illinois’ highly-ranked Gies College of Business, which costs $22,000. Out-of-state students pay $75,000 in tuition for an on-campus degree.
Though its partnerships with companies and its degree programs are
growing, he says the $49 fee (or subscription fee of $49-$99 per month)
learners pay to earn completion certificates for its wide selection of
courses that are open to the public still account for the largest share
of Coursera’s revenue.
Stanford computers science professors Daphne Koller and Andrew Ng
founded Coursera in 2012 as a platform to offer massive open online
courses, known as MOOCs. Their vision was to give students around the
world free access to college courses taught by professors from top
universities. At first, Coursera charged nothing to students, who earned
no academic credit. Princeton, Penn and Michigan signed on. Tremendous
hype followed, with thought leaders like the New York Times’
Thomas Friedman writing about Coursera and its fellow MOOC providers
Udacity and edEx, “Nothing has more potential to unlock a billion more
brains to solve the world’s problems.â€
The narrative soon switched to “the death of the MOOC,†after data
from two University of Pennsylvania studies showed that 80% of people
who registered for free MOOCs already had degrees and only half of them
bothered to look at a single lecture. A minuscule 4% completed their
courses.
In 2014 Coursera hired former Yale president Rick Levin and started
charging $30-$70 for course completion certificates. In 2017
Maggioncalda took over the top job. He had a track record running a
successful company started by Stanford professors. In 2010 he took
retirement planning website Financial Engines, founded by Nobel prize
winner William F. Sharpe and former SEC commissioner Joseph Grundfest,
public. By the time he left, its market cap was close to $2 billion and
his net worth was north of $50 million.
At Coursera, he’s put the company on a growth trajectory that
includes expansion around the world. After the U.S., Coursera’s greatest
growth has come from India, China, Mexico and Brazil, in that order.
The latest investment in Coursera was led by SEEK Group,
an Australian company with stakes in online employment and education
firms. SEEK was joined by previous Coursera investors Future Fund and
NEA. It brings Coursera’s total funding to $313 million.
Coursera is the second company on Forbes’ 2018 Next Billion-Dollar
Startup list to cross into unicorn territory this week. Read Amy
Feldman’s story about trucking industry technology provider KeepTruckin here.
With the universities going online in India, the education scenario is set to change tremendously, making the country’s growth rate of enrollment at par with that of the United States of America and Europe, according to a report.
Total enrollment in online education will grow at 33.6 per cent CAGR and cross 2.12 crore by 2022.
UGC regulations have allowed universities to offer online programs,
which were not legal in India till now. This, combined with the
continued government efforts would help make education available to many
who are willing to pursue it but lacked time and access.
The enrollment in Online Degree or Diploma Programs will experience 14.5 per cent CAGR growth and will reach 63.63 lakh by 2022, according to a recent report titled ‘Trends and opportunities in the online learning market’ released by Schoolguru Eduserve (a TeamLease group company). This growth in enrolment will become comparable to that of the United States of America and Europe where it is 16 per cent and 12 per cent respectively, the report added.
Not just the higher online education, but the whole gamut of online
education ecosystem including formal degree re-skilling programs, will
see an exponential growth, the report added.
Total enrollment in online education will grow at 33.6 per cent CAGR and cross 2.12 crore by 2022. The online re-skilling and certification market (for the repair and upgrade) will reach Rs 3,333 crore by 2022.
Noting that there has been a rapid evolution in the field online
education over the last five years, the report expects the industry to
soon enter the era of Virtual and Augmented Reality at the learner-end
and AI and machine learning at the back-end.
However, the report noted several challenges faced by the online
education sector such as language familiarity, high fees, Lengthy
duration of the course and enrolment procedure, unavailability of
qualified online instructors, inadequate student-faculty interactions.
According to the report, some of the hindrances that the online education sector is facing are unavailability of qualified online instructors, inadequate student-faculty interactions, duration of the course, lengthy enrollment procedure and high fees.
Online education is not only a growing industry, but is an effective
model to address the challenges of cost, equity, and employability in
our education system and help the industry to prepare, repair and
upgrade of its workforce, CEO and Founder, Schoolguru Eduserve Pvt. Ltd
Shantanu Rooj said. Online learning has the potential to increase the
gross-enrollment ratio (GER) rates from the current 25 per cent to 30
per cent and if blended with on-job learning, can help improve the
employability of our youth in India dramatically, he added.
Tags: CSE, edtech, india, online education, stocks, tsx, tsx-v Posted in betterU Education Corp | Comments Off on BetterU Education Corp. $BTRU.ca – As universities go online, education landscape set to change; growth to match US, Europe #Edtech $ARCL $CPLA $BPI $FC.ca
Posted by AGORACOM-JC
at 8:30 AM on Wednesday, April 24th, 2019
BetterU (BTRU:TSXV) has been taking some heat in 2019 for delays of a very significant financing, which quite frankly has been out of their hands. However, while funders get themselves sorted out, BTRU has been on the move in a big way with new content partners, updating their product offering with some head snapping features and the addition of some great personnel. Specifically, Gurmit Singh, Former Managing Director of Yahoo India and CEO Forbes India has entered into an agreement to support BTRU.
Watch this video interview with Company CEO, Brad Loiselle to get the full story about what has happened in 2019 and the exciting things to to look forward to for the remainder of the year.
Posted by AGORACOM-JC
at 8:47 AM on Tuesday, April 23rd, 2019
Former Managing Director of Yahoo India and CEO Forbes India enters into agreement to support betterU
Mr. Singh comes to betterU with over 20 years of experience, including most recently as the Managing Director of Yahoo! India Pvt. Ltd. (formerly known as Yahoo! Inc.).
OTTAWA, April 23, 2019 — betterU Education Corp. (the “Company†or “betterUâ€) is pleased to announce that Mr. Gurmit Singh through his firm DAUWAU will work as a consultant in order to support the Company’s efforts in providing access to education across India.
Mr. Singh comes to betterU with over 20 years of experience,
including most recently as the Managing Director of Yahoo! India Pvt.
Ltd. (formerly known as Yahoo! Inc.). Mr. Singh managed Yahoo!’s
business in India and was responsible for its growth in the country
since 2012. Prior to this, he served as the Chief Executive Officer of
Forbes India at Network 18. During his career, he held many
leadership roles across consumer products, music, entertainment and
media sectors, working for companies such as Sony Music, Hindustan
Times, India Today Group, Rajshri Media, Marico Industries and Network
18.
As India continues to grow and evolve, education plays one of the
most critical roles in the country’s success. Access to quality
education and skills development is one of the country’s key priorities.
Currently skill initiatives such as the Government’s ‘Skills India’
push has been working to solve the skilling of over 150 million people
across all sectors. Mr. Singh, having overseen the growth of Yahoo!
India, has first-hand experience with the high level of content
consumption in India. After exiting from his role at Yahoo!, Mr. Singh
initiated more in-depth research into the education market, which led
him to betterU. “I was pleasantly surprised to hear of the efforts
betterU has been making in India. I believe that what they have been
building could pioneer a shift in access to education that could support
everyone everywhere. This is only possible by bringing together as many
partners that betterU has been able to accomplish. When Brad Loiselle,
CEO of betterU and I first spoke, I was excited to not only learn more,
but to offer my support in helping them get their company more known,†said Mr. Singh.
Online education in India continues to grow at an exponential rate
and according to a report by Google and KPMG, by 2021 the Indian online
learning market will reach close to $2 billion in revenues. UNESCO
stated that by 2030 there will be a shortage of over 65 million teachers
globally. This will have a significant impact on the world’s ability to
provide access to quality education unless the world’s educators come
together to solve this problem. “betterU has been focused on this
problem for many years and I was thrilled that someone with Gurmit’s
experience saw the value in what we have been building for India. My
team and I are looking forward to working with Gurmit and advancing
betterU’s nation efforts in India,†said Brad Loiselle, President and CEO, betterU.
betterU, a global education-to-employment platform, aims to provide
access to quality education from around the world to foster growth and
opportunity to those who want to better their lives. The company plans
to bridge the prevailing gap in the education and job industry and
enhance the lives of its prospective learners by developing an
integrated education-to-employment ecosystem. betterU’s offerings can be
categorized into several broad functions: to complement school programs
with flexible KG-12 programs preparing children for next stage of
education, to provide access to global educational opportunities from
leading educators, to foster an exceptional educational environment by
providing befitting skills that lead to a better career, to bridge the
gap between one’s existing education and prospective job requirement by
training them and lastly, to connect the end user to various job
opportunities.
Neither TSX Venture Exchange nor its Regulation Services Provider (as
that term is defined in policies of the TSX Venture Exchange) accepts
responsibility for the adequacy or accuracy of this release.
This press release may contain forward-looking statements and
information, which may involve risks and uncertainties. The results or
events predicted in these statements may differ materially from actual
results or events. Factors that might cause a difference include, but
are not limited to, competitive developments, risks associated with
betterU’s growth, the state of the financial markets, regulatory risks
and other factors. There can be no assurance or guarantees that any
statements of forward-looking information contained in this release will
prove to be accurate. Actual results and future events could differ
materially from those anticipated in such statements. These and all
subsequent written and oral statements containing forward-looking
information are based on the estimates and opinions of management on the
dates they are made and expressly qualified in their entirety by this
notice. Unless otherwise required by applicable securities laws, betterU
disclaims any intention or obligation to update or revise any
forward-looking statements, whether because of new information, future
events or otherwise. Readers should not place undue reliance on any
statements of forward-looking information that speak only as of the date
of this release. Further information on betterU’s public filings,
including their most recent audited consolidated financial statements,
are available at www.sedar.com.
On behalf of the Board of Directors, betterU Education Corp. Brad Loiselle, CEO
Tags: CSE, edtech, india, online education, stocks, tsx, tsx-v Posted in betterU Education Corp | Comments Off on Gurmit Singh, Former Managing Director of #Yahoo India and CEO #Forbes #India enters into agreement to support betterU $BTRU.ca $ARCL $CPLA $BPI $FC.ca
Posted by AGORACOM-JC
at 3:35 PM on Monday, April 22nd, 2019
SPONSOR:Â Betteru Education Corp. Connecting global leading educators to the mass population of India. BetterU Education has ability to reach 100 MILLION potential learners each week. Click here for more information.
BTRU: TSX-V
————————
Bringing edtech solutions to the next half billion
As entrepreneurs ride the internet wave to build and provide
disruptive edtech solutions, it is important to remember that we’re only
just scratching the surface with its possibilities.
Today, there are about 260 million students in K12 schools and 30 million in higher education institutions
Further, there are 75 million children in the 3-6 year early childhood category, while at the other end of the age spectrum there are hundreds of millions of working professionals in need of constant upskilling due to the evolving nature of their jobs.
By Namita Dalmia
Today, there are about 260 million students in K12 schools and 30
million in higher education institutions. Further, there are 75 million
children in the 3-6 year early childhood category, while at the other
end of the age spectrum there are hundreds of millions of working
professionals in need of constant upskilling due to the evolving nature
of their jobs.
Families rely on education as a gateway to opportunity and a
meaningful life. Hence, 40% of K12 students go to private schools and
one-fourth students, from both government and private schools, opt for
after-school tuitions. Despite this, learning and employability outcomes
remain poor. Only 26% of Grade 5 students can do a simple division
(ASER 2016), 38% of youth in age 14-18 can apply mathematics to the
real-world problem of calculating ‘discount’ (ASER 2017), and 56% of
employers continue to report talent shortage (Manpower Group 2018).
However, it isn’t all bad news. India’s increasingly mobile-first
outlook offers the solution. In July 2018, 390 million Indians were
consuming nearly 8GB internet data each month. Over the next five years,
half a billion more will come online for the first time due to
declining internet prices and improving connectivity. Given the
education outcomes gap and India’s growth in mobile penetration,
education technology or edtech provides us a tool to level the field.
But in order to capitalise on this opportunity, edtech entrepreneurs
will have to build trust with the users, just like many other sectors
have—for example, bill payments, travel and online shopping. Over the
last few years, we have learnt the following ways in which edtech can
overcome some of these trust issues:
Rooting in sound, holistic pedagogy: Great teachers focus on deep
conceptual learning, real-life applications, personalised feedback and
continuous motivation. While most edtech provides some of these, they
miss out on other crucial elements. These solutions then rely on
successful implementation—at home by parents or in-class by teachers,
which is often lacking. Vedantu—a full-stack, live teaching
solution—bridges this gap by combining the skills of a great teacher
with an AI-personalised platform for individual learning support and
providing an academic mentor for motivational support.
Keeping users at centre: Any edtech solution must keep both teachers
and students at the centre of the solution. For a decade, a large amount
of content has been created and made available but has failed to see
significant pull from users. Doubtnut, a learning app, on the other hand
sees organic adoption and engagement with its doubt resolution feature
that solves pain point of students when they get stuck solving tricky
problems.
Linking & ensuring outcomes: Exam results and competitive
examinations ranks are yardsticks that help parents and schools to
measure outcomes. Offline players like tuition classes have created
brands on the back of the outcomes. Edtechs have surfaced but need to
accelerate outcomes in order to win in the long run. Similarly,
upskilling programmes for working professionals, English language
learning for vocational learners and coding boot camps for university
students can demonstrate success through job placements or increased
wages.
Going beyond ‘academic’ outcomes: Developing competencies like
critical thinking and creativity, and mindsets such as grit and empathy
are vital to quality learning and crucial for learners to succeed as the
workforce of the future. There is an opportunity for entrepreneurs to
build solutions that focus on building 21st century skills and
integrating these in the pedagogy of academic subjects. Code.org is an
example of a platform for building logic, creativity, algorithmic
thinking skills by teaching students how to code.
Optimising pricing: Edtech sold direct to learners will eventually
need to replace offline purchases and not just remain supplemental in
order to create value through monetisation. It must reduce the burden on
both parents’ wallets and students’ time and so a full-stack solution
has higher potential than a fragmented offering. Moreover, offering
trials or small-size purchase options before a full purchase is a useful
strategy to break trust barriers with first-time customers.
Building cultural relevance: A majority of learners are comfortable
in vernacular or bilingual medium of instructions, even when they go to
“English-medium†schools. Platforms like Khan Academy, DIKSHA, Doubtnut
cater to this need. Besides localising content offerings, edtech
entrepreneurs should adopt relevant UI/UX and product flow strategies
that will work with their target segments.
As education entrepreneurs ride the internet wave to build and
provide disruptive edtech solutions, it is important to remember we’re
only just scratching the surface with its possibilities. But there’s no
doubt that the education sector is ready more than ever for disruption
at scale.
The author is principal, Investments, Omidyar Network India, an investment firm focused on social impact
1557251551616.jpg?fm=png&auto=format)
