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The Top 5 Tech Trends That Will Disrupt Education In 2020 – The EdTech Innovations Everyone Should Watch

Bernard Marr Contributor 

• One solid indicator that EdTech is big business is the number of billionaires the sector created.
• According to Deloitte, the Chinese education market should reach $715 billion by 2025 and was responsible for creating seven new billionaires.

The richest was Li Yongxin, who leads Offcn Education Technology that provides online and offline training for individuals who want to take civil service exams, but there were other EdTech business leaders represented. Here we consider the key technologies that underpin the EdTech revolution as well as the top 5 tech trends set to disrupt education in 2020.

Key Technologies that Underpin the EdTech Revolution

A discussion about the top tech trends that will disrupt education must first begin with the technologies that will influence these trends.

Artificial intelligence will continue to fill gaps in learning and teaching and help personalize and streamline education. As students interact with connected Internet of Things (IoT) devices and other digital tools, data will be gathered. This big data and analysis of it is instrumental for personalized learning, determining interventions, and what tools are effective. Extended reality, including virtual, augmented, and mixed realities, helps create different learning opportunities that can engage students even further. Education is increasingly becoming mobile, and educational institutions are figuring out ways to enhance the student experience by implementing mobile technology solutions. Of course, this technology requires a capable network to handle the traffic demands, and 5G technology will provide powerful new mobile data capabilities. Finally, blockchain technology offers educational institutions to store and secure student records.  

Top 5 Tech Trends That Will Disrupt Education in 2020

1.  More accessible education

There aren’t only financial considerations when speaking about how accessible education is. The UN estimates there are more 263 million kids globally who are not getting a full-time education. While there are many reasons for this statistic, such as access to a qualified educational facility, there are also issues with proper materials, learning accommodations, and more. Online learning makes education available to those even in remote areas as well as make it easy to share curriculum across borders. EdTech solutions can overcome many common barriers to a quality education.

Technology can improve access to education. Digital textbooks that can be accessed online 24/7 won’t require transportation to get to an educational facility or library during certain hours. Digital copies are relatively cheap to produce, so textbook fees aren’t as taxing for digital versions as they might be with physical versions that cost more to create. Similarly, translating physical textbooks into all the languages natively spoken is cost-prohibitive for publishers when they are producing only physical copies of books. Digital versions make these translations much more feasible.

Within the classroom, the ultimate accommodation for learning differences is called differentiated learning. This allows students to have learning that is tailored to their personal needs. This and student-paced learning where students can move through and review material at the speed they need is much more feasible when using technology. There are also tech solutions for students who have physical or learning disabilities.

2.  More data-driven insights

Just like it does for other industries, technology can help educational institutions and educators be more effective and efficient. By analyzing the data about how digital textbooks are consumed, or educational technology is used, valuable data-driven insights for how to enhance learning can be attained as well as provide info to make decisions about what tools aren’t effective. Technology, including big data, machine learning, and artificial intelligence, will also allow for more in-depth personalization of the content for an individual’s learning needs. At the university level, data is no longer siloed into individual department’s Excel spreadsheets but is consolidated at the institution level, so insights can be extracted. With the assistance of data-driven insights to readily see where students need more support and what support is necessary, teachers are freed up to inspire students and change lives.

3.  More personalized education

While a personalized education experience isn’t a novel concept, technology can make achieving it much easier. Today’s classrooms are diverse and complex, and access to technology helps better meet each student’s needs. Technological tools can free teachers up from administrative tasks such as grading and testing to develop individual student relationships. Teachers can access a variety of learning tools through technology to give students differentiated learning experiences outside of the established curriculum.

4.  More immersive education

Extended reality encompassing virtual, augmented, and mixed reality brings immersive learning experiences to students no matter where they are. A lesson about ancient Egypt can literally come alive when a student puts on a VR headset and walks around a digital version of the time period. Students can experience hard-to-conceptualize current-day topics through extended reality, such as walking among camps of Syrian refugees. This technology enables learning by doing. Students are used to using voice interfaces at home when asking Alexa to define a word when doing homework, but this technology can also support learning and improve education in other ways. Chatbots can deliver lectures via conversational messages and engage students in learning with a communication tool they have become quite comfortable with, such as what CourseQ offers. Ultimately, if chatbots can make the learning process more engaging for students and reduce the workload on human educators, their use in education will continue to grow.

5.  More automated schools

Many schools already rely on online assessments that are flexible, interactive, and efficient to deliver. Automation will continue to alter schools as more smart tools get incorporated, including face recognition technology to take attendance, autonomous data analysis to inform learning decisions so teachers don’t need to analyze data as well as help automate administrative tasks. When a student interacts with online technology, they leave a digital footprint that informs learning analytics. But automation will also help control building costs by automatically controlling lighting and heating/cooling systems and to help keep students safe with automated school security systems.

Source: https://www.forbes.com/sites/bernardmarr/2020/01/20/the-top-5-tech-trends-that-will-disrupt-education-in-2020the-edtech-innovations-everyone-should-watch/#5dbc43f42c5b

SPONSOR:  BetterU Education Corp. aims to provide access to quality education from around the world. 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 ecosystem. Click here for more information.

Edtech Startup Eupheus Learning Raises $4.3 Mn To Scale Operations

• The funds will be used to increase nationwide presence, develop new product offerings etc
• It will also start its operations in the Middle East
• The company claims that in H1 FY20, it recorded a 3x increase in revenues

By: Bhumika Khatri

New Delhi-based edtech startup Eupheus Learning, on Thursday (January 23), announced that it has raised $4.3 Mn (INR 30 Cr) in its Series A funding round. The investment is a mix of equity and venture debt, which was led by Yuj Ventures.

Other investors in the round included Sixth Sense Ventures. The funds will be used to increase nationwide presence, develop new product offerings, and expand the team. The company said it will also start its operations in the Middle East and drive international expansion in other markets.

Eupheus Learning was founded in 2017 by Sarvesh Shrivastava, Rohit Dhar, Ved Prakash Khatri, and Amit Kapoor. Operating across the Pre-K to Class XII segments, Eupheus offers products in all subject areas and packages both the curriculum and homework tracking tools in phygital form.

Sarvesh Shrivastava, managing director of Eupheus Learning said, “The online education segment in India is primed for massive growth, as the next generation of children enter classrooms across the country. By leveraging the power of technology, we’ve been able to bridge the divide between in-school and at-home learning and offer a seamless, end-to-end learning experience.”

The company claims that in H1 FY20, it recorded a 3x increase in revenues compared to the same period last year. It also said that it expanded its geographical presence to 70 cities in India from 52 earlier. The team has also grown to 175 employees as it has also forged new alliances with four international education players, taking its roster of global partnerships to 17.

“We are impressed by the founders’ experience, the previous track record of developing cutting edge content at Britannica, and the manner in which they have scaled Eupheus in a profitable manner in the last two years in a competitive market,” said Madhav Soi of Yuj Ventures.

Digital evolution and the boom in smartphone adoption are expected to define the way Indian students learn. Real-time book updates, online tutoring, edutainment, online test preparation, web-based research, and gamification — technology has changed our traditional education system in more ways than one.

Source: https://inc42.com/buzz/edtech-startup-eupheus-learning-raises-4-3-mn-series-a-funding/

SPONSOR:  BetterU Education Corp. aims to provide access to quality education from around the world. 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 ecosystem. Click here for more information.

Budget 2020: Let’s grow both edtech and skill-tech

• B-Schools, and the education industry in general, expect Budget 2020 to offer robust remedial solutions that are aligned with the vision of creating a thriving education ecosystem
• We hope the government will roll out incentives to provide impetus to the activities and subsequently to the growth of edtech as well as of skill-tech enterprises

By Vibhava Srivastava

Budget 2020 India: In Union Budget 2019, finance minister Nirmala Sitharaman proposed the New Education Policy (NEP) that acknowledged the importance of promoting skill development through schools as well as higher education with an emphasis on technology, including machine learning, artificial intelligence, big data analytics. The draft NEP 2019 envisioned preparing students not only to seamlessly merge with the workforce of tomorrow, but also to be in sync with evolving needs of Industry 4.0.

However, the said draft has a number of missing dots. It neither addresses current challenges (structural unemployment, decreasing job security, rise of gig economy), nor it suggests any mechanism to overcome these challenges. The upcoming Union Budget is an opportunity for the government to right its past wrongs.

B-Schools, and the education industry in general, expect Budget 2020 to offer robust remedial solutions that are aligned with the vision of creating a thriving education ecosystem. We hope the government will roll out incentives to provide impetus to the activities and subsequently to the growth of edtech as well as of skill-tech enterprises. Such incentives along with funding provisions will create space for collaboration amongst the eminent B-Schools and industry. This will provide a boost to the industry’s sluggish growth.

The author is assistant professor, Marketing, MDI Gurgaon

Source: https://www.financialexpress.com/budget/budget-2020-lets-grow-both-edtech-and-skill-tech/1828323/

SPONSOR:  BetterU Education Corp. aims to provide access to quality education from around the world. 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 ecosystem. Click here for more information.

How Edtech became personalised in the 2010s

• The internet is being used to reach this diverse population in the remotest corners, and advanced tech is being used to create new learning experiences
• If we look at the new technology accessible to teachers and students today, then we would agree that the accepted way to teach and learn has changed

By Zishaan Hayath

The integration of technology started with improving classroom experiences and reached adaptive learning platforms that students can personalise, says Toppr’s Zishaan Hayath

We are in an era where unprecedented ideas are unfolding in education, driven by technology. Digitising learning content has been imperative, keeping in mind affordability, accessibility and inclusiveness of the large trainable youth population. The internet is being used to reach this diverse population in the remotest corners, and advanced tech is being used to create new learning experiences. If we look at the new technology accessible to teachers and students today, then we would agree that the accepted way to teach and learn has changed. It is undeniable that education has evolved so much, and technology has opened up the world a lot for both students and teachers. In this article, we explore the journey of edtech through this decade that saw it evolve from smart classes to personalised learning apps on smartphones.

EDTECH SOLUTIONS WERE DESIGNED AROUND IMPROVING THE CLASSROOM EXPERIENCE AND HELPING TEACHERS

Integration of technology in the learning and education system is evidently the greatest change in education in the past decade. The earliest technology innovations for schools were created around providing software and hardware to make the classroom experience better. More emphasis was put on the use of rich multimedia content as a teaching tool inside classrooms. We saw more and more teachers making use of overhead projectors and videos during their lessons. This was then considered to be a revolutionary in-classroom technology, leveraging a large repository of digital content across virtually all subjects from kindergarten to Class 12. This new technology helped schools with better educational resource planning and helped teachers with better lecture delivery. Performance management and tracking systems enabled teachers to measure the progress of students systematically. Such classrooms were called “smart classes”. Progress in technology, however, has led to much more.

INTERNET SHIFTED FOCUS FROM CLASSROOMS TO VIRTUAL CLASSROOMS WITH DIGITISED CONTENT.

Smart class solutions faced challenges like high set-up cost, hardware maintenance and non-payments by institutions. As a result, edtech companies started moving to asset-light models. Digitisation of learning material and availability on platforms, including YouTube, followed the wave of smart classes. Internet penetration made everything easier and faster, enabling students to access digital study material that was informational and interactive and could be accessed anytime, anywhere. The gap in the ability to access high quality learning material was shrinking. This boom in digitisation of content helped scale the concept of pre-recorded online classes in India. The availability of fast internet connections and easy access allowed students to be more informed and open to new avenues. ‘In jobs, expertise from experience is no longer critical’ Students were able to take on-demand classes without having to attend any physical classes. For students, this improved affordability, while reduced travel time allowed them to study at their own pace and time.

EDTECH STARTED GROWING EXPONENTIALLY WITH LEARNING APPS

As students started accessing learning material over the internet, it gave rise to a new opportunity. Newly introduced learning apps started providing content at one place, which was otherwise scattered. The content was now organised and designed around a teacher’s pedagogy. Online courses developed by proficient tutors gave students the experience of real-time learning while sitting in the comfort of their homes. Edtech saw growth in many disciplines, including primary and supplementary education, test preparation, reskilling and online certifications, and language learning. Global institutions started running online certification courses powered by edtech that helped in course delivery, examinations and assessments. Indian entrepreneurs made an impressive effort in following and customising the global trend of digitisation of the education system. Increasing awareness and higher disposable income boosted the edtech market and it attracted significant investments from Indian and global investors.

PERSONALISED LEARNING MARKED THE NEW AGE OF EDTECH

The second half of the last decade saw the use of advanced technology. Cutting edge tech, including artificial intelligence (AI) and machine learning (ML), gave rise to education platforms that addressed the basic problem of the education system of India—the one-size-fits-all-approach. With a typical classroom having a teacher-to-student ratio of 1:50, the quality is often compromised and that’s where technology is useful. Adaptive learning platforms using AI and ML create personalised learning paths helping students study in the way they best understand, thus enabling them to learn as per their needs. Gamification in learning has helped engage students in a meaningful way, making them genuinely interested in their subject matter. Why companies will have to fill digital skill gaps soon: Wipro’s Saurabh Govil Cloud-based learning is fast emerging as the medium to make personalised and high quality learning available to all students. Live classes with teachers can be conducted on such platforms, along with pre-recorded video classes, where the students can access the material on their own time. Students can now reach out for academic help 24×7. This is quickly changing the possibilities of delivery mediums when it comes to affordable access to high-quality learning.

CUSTOMER ACQUISITION AND RETENTION WOULD BE KEY CHALLENGES TO FURTHER GROWTH

Availability and access to the internet are important for all of these technologies to become relevant to end-users, i.e. students and teachers. The number of people accessing the internet has grown manifold over the last decade. However, for a society like India where the culture of coaching classes is deep-rooted, it is challenging to drive the adoption of edtech platforms as an alternative. Students, parents and teachers need to be better informed of the benefits of edtech. Startups are trying various business models, including free, freemium and premium subscriptions to drive usage and trial. However, there is a lot of ground to be covered. As this decade ends, we recognise that the Indian education system has evolved fast, along with global trends. Technology has also enabled streamlining of the learning experience, improved accessibility and offered new resources to students. And there is only more to come. With one of the largest populations in the world, stronger implementation of AI and ML will help bring truly adaptive and personalised platforms addressing the real learning needs of students and professionals. Edtech is all set to give more accessible, high-quality and personalised learning and prepare the leaders of tomorrow.

Source: http://www.forbesindia.com/article/vision-2020/how-edtech-became-personalised-in-the-2010s/57109/1

SPONSOR:  BetterU Education Corp. aims to provide access to quality education from around the world. 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 ecosystem. Click here for more information.

2020 vision: edtech in 2020 with John Ingram

Thursday 16th January 2020

Q. What should schools, colleges and universities be focusing on for 2020?

Certainly, from our experience working with schools, they need to be supported more when it comes to training teachers to use technology. We find that teachers are usually keen on the idea of using new technologies in the classroom, but that implementation needs to be handled with greater care. Tech in UK classrooms often goes unused, which ultimately means that millions of pounds are potentially going to waste. Colleges and universities are making better progress on training teachers to use technology, so I’d like to see more improvement at school level.

Q. What, if any, policy changes would you like to see in education this year?

It was encouraging to hear the government announce new measures to help boost the nation’s skills and transform technical education, such as providing up to £120m to establish up to eight more Institutes of Technology. However, many of the measures aimed at boosting the UK’s productivity and building a skilled workforce are targeted towards further education, so it would be great to see some more focus given to schools.

It would also be great to see some progress around the UK Youth Parliament’s campaign for A Curriculum for Life. Young people are calling for the education system to do more to prepare them for life after school and college – a critically important area that often flies under the radar – and it’s important that they are heard.

Q. If you could pinpoint one area of improvement for the education sector during 2020, what would it be?

If I had to choose one area, it would be improving the way we treat and support teachers, addressing serious problem areas such as excessive workloads and teacher retention.

There are many tools on the market that can help with onerous non-teaching tasks such as marking, assessment and lesson planning. The challenge is to ensure that schools are made aware of the best of these, so that they can spend their tight budgets wisely.

Schools are often tasked with helping reduce teacher workload and ensuring staff retention, but this can be difficult against a backdrop of increasing budget cuts and Ofsted pressures.

I believe edtech can play a role here. There are many tools on the market that can help with onerous non-teaching tasks such as marking, assessment and lesson planning. The challenge is to ensure that schools are made aware of the best of these, so that they can spend their tight budgets wisely.

Q. Is there a particular area within edtech that you think should be the main focus for 2020?

I think adaptive learning and targeted education are set to feature prominently in 2020 – there are many platforms out there making big strides, but there’s still a long way to go. The end goal is for classrooms to have adaptive learning platforms that retain the benefits of learning in a group (social skills, motivation, etc) and combine this with fully personalised instruction. We’re making progress towards this, but fully moving away from ‘one-size-fits-all’ learning, and inflexible learning pathways, will take time.

Separately, I’d also like to see more of a push towards technology being used at earlier ages in schools, so that comfort and familiarity with using tech amongst students and teachers is embedded early on. Nevertheless, no matter what technologies are introduced, we must bear in mind that not everyone is a technophile. For edtech adoption to take off, schools and universities must work to adjust internal cultures so that they are open to advancements.

Source: https://edtechnology.co.uk/Article/vision-2020-edtech-in-2020-with-john-ingram/

SPONSOR:  BetterU Education Corp. aims to provide access to quality education from around the world. 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 ecosystem. Click here for more information.

Matrix Partners backs edtech startup Toddle

• Educational technology startup Toddle has raised its first institutional funding round, led by Matrix Partners India.
• Better Capital and angel investors such as Swiggy co-founder Rahul Jaimini also participated in the capital raising, Deepanshu Arora, cofounder of Toddle told ET, without disclosing the funding amount.

By: Sanghamitra Kar

Educational technology startup Toddle has raised its first institutional funding round, led by Matrix Partners India.

Better Capital and angel investors such as Swiggy co-founder Rahul Jaimini also participated in the capital raising, Deepanshu Arora, cofounder of Toddle told ET, without disclosing the funding amount.

Bengaluru-based Toddle, which helps teachers streamline curriculum planning, documentation, parent communication and analytics, was founded last year by Arora and Parita Parekh.

Arora and Parekh earlier ran a network of pre-schools in Ahmedabad, Mumbai and Hyderabad. Toddle says it has more than 10,000 teachers on its platform.

“Today’s teachers are very tech-savvy and use technology for a variety of needs. The struggle is that they have to juggle between multiple tools to solve for these needs. Our goal is to simplify the entire teaching and learning cycle with one seamless and intuitive solution,” Arora said.

The company plans to use the money to cater to more educational segments.

“Having been educators themselves, the Toddle team has built a product that is revolutionizing the way teachers plan, interact and collaborate with other teachers, students and parents,” said Rajat Agarwal, Director, Matrix India.

The Indian ed-tech market is expected to reach $2 billion by 2021, according to a report by KPMG and Google.

Source: https://tech.economictimes.indiatimes.com/news/startups/matrix-partners-backs-edtech-startup-toddle/73257867

SPONSOR:  BetterU Education Corp. aims to provide access to quality education from around the world. 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 ecosystem. Click here for more information.

Top edtech trends to rule India’s virtual learning space in 2020

• Today’s educators are completely aware of the fact that the 21st-century student is no longer receptive to the practice of offline learning, which limits them to textbooks and classrooms
• Rather, they prefer online channels that are easily accessible and give them a much wider choice of self-learning. According to a recent KPMG report, the online education industry is anticipated to gain a user base of 9.6 million by 2021 as compared to 1.6 million in 2016

By Akhand Swaroop Pandit, Founder and CEO, Catalyst Group, Online Learning Platform.

Since time immemorial, we have been acclimatised to attain our educational goals through classroom-based learning, which is majorly based on a theoretical exam-driven system. From the very childhood, this archaic system pushes us to focus on scoring well, instead of practically understanding the concepts. However, now that this belief is changing with the advent of various online learning tools, educators are rapidly adopting online learning pedagogies, which involve the right mix of offline as well as online learning techniques.

Today’s educators are completely aware of the fact that the 21st-century student is no longer receptive to the practice of offline learning, which limits them to textbooks and classrooms. Rather, they prefer online channels that are easily accessible and give them a much wider choice of self-learning. According to a recent KPMG report, the online education industry is anticipated to gain a user base of 9.6 million by 2021 as compared to 1.6 million in 2016.

In fact, the scope of online learning is not only limited to school and competitive exams but has gone beyond these boundaries. A large number of online players have forayed into upskilling – helping job seekers acquire new skills and prepare for today’s evolving job market. That said, the education system in India is surely reshaping by leaps and bounds and is turning into a student-friendly ecosystem that focusses mainly on fostering effective learning.

On the back of this transformation, the education industry is witnessing several trends, and this is just the beginning! Here’s an outlook on the top trends that India is likely to witness in 2020:

Personalised learning

For ages, it has remained a challenge for educators to assess each and every student in the classroom. Even the practice of parent-teacher meeting has not been much of a success. However, players in the online learning space are highly focused on addressing this challenge. With the kinds of online tests these players conduct and the way they leverage the digital footprints of users, it has become both easy and efficient to cater to the needs of students as emphasising on their strengths and weaknesses that they would need to work upon.

Artificial intelligence (AI)

Although not every new to the human ears, AI is certainly redesigning the path of online education by automating and making the process more engaging than ever. The integration of AR and VR in the online space significantly adds an audio-visual factor to the overall learning process with elements such as 3D designs, animations, and sign languages, among others – making learning fun for both students and educators. It is clear how education has come out of the textbooks and is leaving digital imprints on the minds of learners, which was not the case a few years ago.

Gamification

While video games were one of the major causes why children once got scolded by parents, gamification has emerged as a new kind of learning technique that is widely being adopted and accepted by educators. A large number of players in this space are gamifying different concepts that can help students enhance their problem-solving power, retain information and improve their overall performance in a very engaging and fun-learning manner. Even in schools, this technique has been adopted by educators to teach valuable skills that they will need to fit into future job roles.

Mobile-based learning

With smartphones becoming an all-time tool for students to gain and collect information from the internet, edtech players are rapidly developing mobile-based content and online study materials that are easily accessible, anytime and anywhere. By leveraging tech advances, these new-age educators are able to expand their reach even to the rural geographies, where imparting education has majorly been an age-long challenge.

Video-based learning

Gone are the days when coaching classes were only seen as offline tutoring sessions. With mentors and educators coming online, students are now enabled to access the same offline sessions through online platforms, on their smartphones. The best part about video-based learning is that it can be replayed an infinite number of times, which naturally eliminates the probability of missing anything associated with the subject. Not only do students get access to live online lectures, but they also have the choice of watching a wide variety of rich and well-researched videos related to their respective subjects.

With the rise of technology disruptions, the future of online learning seems promising and filled with a barrage of opportunities for edtech players to innovate further. Not only are these new-age platforms ensuring quality education to student masses, but also making sure that learning reaches to every corner of the country. The aforementioned trends are gaining wider adoption and are already being implemented by several educational institutions across the country. Besides, it is anticipated that these advances will slowly but surely help India turn into a digital-first nation and make its citizens smart enough to secure future jobs, which would be largely driven by technology.

Source: https://www.how2shout.com/technology/top-edutech-trends-to-rule-indias-virtual-learning-space-in-2020.html

SPONSOR:  BetterU Education Corp. aims to provide access to quality education from around the world. 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 ecosystem. Click here for more information.

How Edtech Can Fill Gaps In Quality Education In Tier-3 Cities?

• A majority of young Indians, mostly belonging to Tier-3 cities, are deprived of quality education due to a lack of accessible educational infrastructure and resources
• Lack of committed educators, unavailability of textbooks, and a dearth of credible coaching centres are among a few of the problems underserved Indian students have to deal with on a daily basis

by Divya Jain

While there is some merit to heeding to your relatives’ advice of devoting more time to “self-study”, for a large number of students across the country it happens to be a singular necessity and unfortunate compulsion. A majority of young Indians, mostly belonging to Tier-3 cities, are deprived of quality education due to a lack of accessible educational infrastructure and resources. Lack of committed educators, unavailability of textbooks, and a dearth of credible coaching centres are among a few of the problems underserved Indian students have to deal with on a daily basis.

The absence of quality coaching centres in Tier-3 cities in India is a major reason why multiple youths preparing for competitive examinations like UPSC choose to migrate to Tier-1 and Tier-2 cities like Delhi, Nagpur, Pune, Jaipur, Mumbai, etc., in search of better learning prospects. However, in addition to offering greater learning resources and opportunities, and an improved lifestyle overall, the expense of living in metro cities also puts a magnified financial burden on to these students. Besides paying the fees of the institution they join, the basic outlay of living (surviving) alone, which includes food and rent of hostels or PGs, becomes unmanageable for all youths not belonging to the affluent class. Add to this the expenditure of buying study material and conveyance, at the minimum. All of these expenses together end up causing the students to go in debt.

The financial aspect aside, the teaching institutes and coaching centres accommodate a very large number of students and the curriculum in these places is designed to cater to those who are either fast-learners or those who have already had a solid academic foundation. A lack of individual teaching approach aimed at educating each and every student based on their individual learning abilities and sensibilities causes a majority of at-risk students to struggle with mental health problems. Impersonal teaching methods of the teachers bent upon drilling information into the students’ heads further adding to the tribulations of most of these students who find it difficult to cope with the vast and fast-paced nature of the syllabi.

It is here that EdTech presents itself as an impeccable solution to all of these problems.

By providing a personalised learning experience to students, EdTech platforms enhance their methods of self-study and self-assessment. Since most of the EdTech platforms contain video lectures on the same topic by multiple instructors, a student can choose to watch the video most agreeable to his or her style. The most empowering featuring of video lectures when compared with in-classroom lectures is that a video can be played, re-played, and paused as many times and as per the convenience of the viewer. Thus, a student can watch and re-watch a lecture until they get the wholesome understanding of a concept, something that is not possible in real-time.

This feature comes as a boon for shy students who find it difficult to engage in discussions during a lecture. For most youths, the overcrowded classroom atmosphere can feel overpowering and even suffocating. E-learning tools can solve their problem by letting them hold one-on-one interactions with senior students or subject experts over the cyberspace. In this way, online engagement gives a student a way out of the limiting classroom environment to get their queries resolved on their own terms as suits them best without them having to follow rigid classroom schedules that run on express speed.  

In addition to these facilities, most EdTech platforms also leverage advanced AI-based technologies like data analytics, machine learning and deep learning to map a student’s learning journey and produce recommendations accordingly. The e-learning platforms can then use this data to come up with personalised test series and assessment plans for individual students. Simultaneously, students can also utilize this facility to make self-assessments and accordingly work upon their weaknesses and strengths with respect to each subject.

EdTech is already disrupting the education sector the world over on the back of its exceptional accessibility, efficiency, and unparalleled convenience. For students belonging to a developing country like India, EdTech comes as both a welcome extension and a much-needed alternative to the existing educational infrastructure.

Source: http://www.businessworld.in/article/How-Edtech-Can-Fill-Gaps-In-Quality-Education-In-Tier-3-Cities-/11-01-2020-181523/

SPONSOR:  BetterU Education Corp. aims to provide access to quality education from around the world. 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 ecosystem. Click here for more information.

The Major Edtech Trends In 2020, According To VCs In India

• Indians spend tens of billions on education every year
• With disposable incomes continuing to rise, there is a massive prize for the startups that achieve success in this space
• According to Anirudh Damani, managing partner, Artha Venture Fund, the key to success for an edtech startup will be to sell directly, thereby keeping a short feedback loop

By: Meha Agarwal

India, being one of the youngest countries in the world and boasting a rapidly-growing startup ecosystem, offers a widely untapped opportunity for many sectors, both locally and globally. Venture capitalists have gravitated to the Indian market in great numbers in the past decade to pour capital into this opportunity, pushing startups towards scalability in every sector. Edtech is no different, and in recent years, this sector has become one of the biggest opportunities for tech startups in the Indian context.

As Unitus Ventures’ senior associate Sunitha Viswanathan told Inc42, the large market of close to 250 Mn students in the K-12 segment and over 10 Mn youth graduating every year mean that India is the land of massive potential for edtech disruption.

“Given the huge lopsided teacher: student ratio, this can only be solved by using tech. Hence, there is a necessity more than a choice. And rightly so,” she added.

While we spoke to edtech startups about the trends they expect to observe in 2020, we also wanted to take the VC view and what they expect from the ecosystem in the new year. What will be the factors that make or break edtech startups in 2020.

Factors For Success In Edtech

Indians spend tens of billions on education every year. With disposable incomes continuing to rise, there is a massive prize for the startups that achieve success in this space.  According to Anirudh Damani, managing partner, Artha Venture Fund, the key to success for an edtech startup will be to sell directly, thereby keeping a short feedback loop.

“That will allow them to innovate faster, adapt, and cater to their end-user requirements quicker.  Therefore, in my opinion, selling directly to end-users is the key to creating success in the edtech space,” he added.

Sajith Pai, director, Blume Ventures further said that the increased focus on regional language learning and data analytics will play an important role in the success of edtech startups in 2020, just like it did in 2019.

Related Article: Gaja Capital Bets $25 Mn On Edtech Company Educational Initiatives

Edtech’s Focus On Increasing User Adoption In 2020

Omkar Kulkarni, the head of GMC Calibrator (Gray Matters Capital’s Digital Accelerator Program, suggests four areas that edtech startups in India need to focus on in the near future:

• Gain engagement by learning insights through user behaviour analytics
• Highlighting common user patterns to improve product and monetisation at early stage
• Cut reliance on digital marketing to reach out to users
• Deliver content through a human-centric design process to increase engagement

Blume’s Pai further added that products that teach with a mix of technology and human intervention will be able to generate faster adoption while keeping costs low and scalability high.

“Also, college admissions and employability are becoming highly competitive and thus big stress points for parents and students. Thus, education platforms that can create FOMO among students (or parents) – either by having a large number of students on board or by having the best students onboard, attract more customer adoption faster,” Pai told Inc42.

Pranjal Kumar, CFO and head of Education Fund at Bertelsmann, believes that being outcome focussed i.e. credentials, test results, job placements etc will deliver a higher chance of success for edtech startups. “High-quality product with high average-order-value and the right balance of online and offline, depending on the target learner and segment of education should be the focus in the near future for edtech startups.”

7 Trends For Indian VCs In Edtech In 2020

Indian edtech startups are currently focussing on all fronts — B2B, B2C, B2B-B2C and C2C. The most prominent sub-sectors have been test preparation, online certification, skill development, online discovery, STEAM kits, and enterprise solution among others.

According to Datalabs by Inc42, in terms of the number of unique edtech businesses funded between January 2014 and September 2019, skill development-focused startups have been the most preferred. However, capital inflows into the test preparation and online certification segments are comparatively higher. Together, these two sub-sectors make up for 91% of the total funding in edtech startups. This shows an imbalance in terms of business models in the Indian edtech ecosystem.

However, according to Bertelsmann’s Kumar, a few more models are expected to see a lot of innovation in the near future. He said bootcamps with or without job assurance, higher education, online programme management models, K-12 tutoring will be huge markets and are currently starved of quality teaching both in curricular as well as co-curricular subject.

Here’s what VCs told us to expect in 2020.

Skilling Startups

The pace of change in technology continues to accelerate. Therefore, education is no longer just the standard 12+4+2 experience.  There’s a need for continuous education that will re-skill or up-skill the workers of today for the challenges of tomorrow. Startups that provide platforms to teach, train, and engage the working population to improve their skills will do very well.

AI Transformation

AI in edtech can help understand better how learning actually happens. If we can understand how one learns the steps in quadratic equations, then this can be used in classrooms by teachers to deliver it more effectively. This will help define pedagogy more tightly

OTT Educators

Even though we hear a lot of buzzwords like artificial intelligence, virtual reality and blockchain, it is the exponential increase in viewership of the likes of TikTok, YouTube and other OTT platforms that will see a trend of content creators delivering educational content on OTT platforms to improve discoverability, reach and scale.

Parents To Invest More

Another challenge for edtech platforms is the cost aspect for families. As far as high school education is concerned, VCs see parents getting more accustomed to spending on tech products for cognitive learning as well as a change in focus of parents from traditional curriculum to 21st-century skills.

Unbundling Of Education

Don’t hope for an edtech superapp. Venture capitalists see startups providing customers (students and teachers) specific standalone services (test prep, counselling, professional and vocational training among others) rather than a combined / bundled product which does it all.

Vernacular Learning

Just over 10% of India’s population can speak English. To build large businesses that can capture greater value, incorporating vernacular learning is key. As seen in the OTT, media and entertainment space, regional language learning will be one of the biggest trends in 2020, according to the VCs that Inc42 spoke to.

Learning for ‘Yearning’

Learning programmes that cater to non-professional interests, or those that work with passion projects and hobbies will see an uptick according to investors. These may or may not lead to employment-related outcomes, but will be about holistic individual skill development, which will be critical for the edtech ecosystem as well as startups at large.

Source: https://inc42.com/features/the-major-edtech-trends-in-2020-according-to-vcs-in-india/