Authored by Abhinav Mital, CoFounder, The WorldGrad
It is close to a year and couple of months into the pandemic and it was probably sometime towards early 2021 when the new normal set in, for many much before that. The new normal where 80% of our lives have moved online. Apart from breaking the myth of various organisations who believed that they can never be efficient if the team is remote, the new normal also tackles the biggest dilemma of moving education completely online. Between 2014 and 2019, more than 4,450 edtech startups were launched in India; out of this 25% soon shut shop while only 4.17% raised funds (DataLabs by Inc42), and come 2020, the landscape tells a different story.
Towards the early 2019, marquee investors like Blume Ventures, Sequoia Capital, Omidyar Network, SAIF partners and Accel Partners were striking major deals in the EdTech arena. This phase also saw the rise of platforms like Unacademy, WhiteHat Jr and Byjus among others. This landscape dabbled more with competitive examination coaching, test preparation and training support in the beginning, which pretty much covered the K12 education. However, the scale of application of EdTech was fully realised towards 2020. In late 2020, barely 20 months old EdTech company was valued at Rs 2,250 crore and was acquired at $300 M, it turned heads and gathered attention. The New Education Policy (NEP) set up by the Government of India, emphasized on digital learning. Much before the policy, the union HRD minister had shared various free digital e-Learning platforms by the Ministry of HRD that students could use to continue their learning online. The DIKSHA portal was introduced with content created by more than 250 teachers in multiple languages. CBSE and NCERT actively participated in this, QR codes were introduced to make it easier for students to access the content offline. e-Pathshala, The National Repository of Open Educational Resources (NROER), Swayam and Swayam Prabha (Direct to Home Channels) are some of the still relevant platforms introduced to manage the landslide of teachers and students who were forced to move online.
The landscape thrived on high school education, empowering teachers, and students alike, but only for K12. In 2021 the focus shifted to higher education, students who wanted to study abroad and the class of 2021 were at mental crossroads, some of them still are. 12th results were delayed, vaccination became an issue, travel restrictions added to the student woes. However, study abroad enablers were present much before the pandemic and they scaled in the time of the need. By 2019 platforms like The WorldGrad, GyanDhan, EdWise, EUGateway, etc. were either in their inception phase or live with their study abroad ideas. These platforms cut through the major bottlenecks for students aspiring to study abroad - Financing, Choice of Country, Choice of Courses, Lodging, Travel and IELTS training. These platforms simply removed these bottlenecks. A student aspiring to study abroad could now access almost any and every course available across the globe online. The EdTech platforms simplified the selection process, they also helped through their admission counselors to navigate the issues like clearing IELTS, English coaching as well as the vaccination worries. Study abroad students now have the flexibility to either finish a part of their year or full year online before travelling to the country of their education. This directly meant slashing down 1/5th of the total cost of pursuing education abroad, which can go as high as 1Cr for an undergraduate abroad. This has enabled more students from economically humble backgrounds and students from tier 2, tier 3 cities to take up education abroad. The WorldGrad platform analysis shows the breakup of traffic from various cities across India and found that student interest from Hyderabad, Telangana and Ludhiana, Punjab continued to grow, followed by Gujarat, Ahmedabad, and the southern states. These Edtech platforms quickly scaled to tie up with foreign universities to provide wider access to aspirants while minimizing the risk.
A recent survey by QS found that 55% of universities had introduced flexible timetables to allow students who were studying remotely to attend lectures at a reasonable hour. It also observed that over half of students surveyed believed that their university had been effective in delivering classes online. Only 8% of students said their university’s online learning was not at all effective. This data accounts for students from 191 countries and holds true for students enrolled in UK universities. But with sample responses in place, one can comfortably say that students have adapted to the new normal and EdTech have scaled to provide the ease of access. In the new normal, a study abroad student is now empowered enough to decide which college, country, or time to choose to pursue higher education. It is made possible because of the EdTech infrastructure that came into play at the right time.
