Ed-tech can be India’s next prime export sector

Last updated on January 6th, 2021 at 07:08 am

Ed-tech: The year 2020 saw India emerge from being a global call centre provider to world’s classroom arena. Though telecom sector took the centre stage with mega deals grounding as India saw massive influx of foreign investors, education sector too was the talk of town with defining trends picking up. 

According to the reports by Indian venture capital associations (IVCA and PGA Labs), the educational technology companies received funds jumping four times to over $2 billion, as compared to $550 million last year. But there were two factors that skyrocketed and boosted the jump in the ed-tech sector. The first was recent closure of schools and educational institutes and increased dependency on distance learning mode of education that led to wide-scale transition digitally. 

The second major factor was the size of education market in India. The market values at more than $100 billion with over 350 million learners. The projected rise of this market to double by 2025 makes India an ideal market for the ed-tech set up. 

This also means that now learning will be an ongoing process in all fields as a result of competitiveness in employment. The training by these ed-tech platforms will be expected to be in likes with the management and technological schools like IIT, IIM, and more, by the employers. The employers as well as course takers will take into account the ROI (return on investment) on the courses, the outcomes career-wise and post training placement and skilling available in the areas.

The evolution of ed-tech will involve adopting and use of artificial intelligence, machine learning and digitalization. These also form the foundation of a growing and stable economy. 

Recently implemented NEP (National Education Policy) is reintroducing four-year undergraduate programme, the last year offering academic permutations and combinations to take a leap in learning framework. 

A digital infrastructure will be required to form the foundational basis of ed-tech and its success in India. This could be the most successful and impactful PPP (Public Private Partnership) eve seen in the country. And this can very well transform India into the next global digital classroom.