“There is no denying that edtech has accelerated digital adoption across the country but the degree greatly varies between urban India and rural India,” said ELSA’s India country manager, Vaibhav Anand, while underscoring the need for more initiatives to bridge the digital divide in the country.
During a panel discussion on the “Role of the edtech sector in making the education system more inclusive, Vaibhav said: “a large section of population, especially in rural India, was affected by the covid-induced restrictions. Students in rural India suffered learning losses due to limited internet penetration and not many of them could afford smartphones and laptops”
“Data shows that the global average of students not being able to go to school was around 38 weeks to 40 weeks but in India, children were not able to attend physical classes for more than 82 weeks and that is a phenomenal number. It does have a long term impact on learning outcomes,” he added.
Vaibhav stressed the need to focus on a low cost, highly accessible, vernacular friendly education model.
“To increase accessibility, it can be integrated with tools like WhatsApp and by making it more personalized. There is a segment of rural learners who unfortunately have not had the opportunities that urban learners have had and they need to be brought up to a certain level before they join the rest of the club,” he added.
Vaibhav also played down the perceived threat of monopoly due to ongoing consolidation in the edtech segment and said that it will create more opportunities and bring in more efficiency in the education system.
“If you look at India alone as a market, there is miles to go in terms of the number of learners to be serviced across the school space which is K12 across the higher education space, or the adult learning space. So, I am not so worried about consolidation being a problem for edtech rather I think it leads to more efficiency and makes way for more quality coming into the system,” he said.
Sharing his views on the valuation game in the edtech segment, Vaibhav pointed out that this phenomenon is not restricted to education segment only
“Edtech has taken the limelight in the last year in terms of valuation perspective, but it’s not edtech in isolation that has this valuation challenge. I think every segment-from food delivery to ride-hailing platforms-is trying to strike a balance between becoming highly valued, and providing a service of a certain quality that is accepted by the customer. If you are not able to sustain a quality product and quality service for the end consumer, ultimately that will reflect in your valuation because revenues will take a hit, the brand will take a hit and that will lead to dilution in the valuation,” he said.
Vaibhav also expressed concern over the effect of digital fatigue on kids and envisioned a blended model based on strengths of online and offline learning.
“It is not as simple as going back to offline mode completely. There has to be a mix. The non-teaching aspects of education like submission of homework or evaluation and assessment can be done more efficiently online, leaving the core aspect of education which is delivery between teacher and students the teaching and learning process that should continue to be offline. In summary, a nice blended model with an understanding of what can be done better offline versus online,” he concluded.
