Only technology can take education to every nook and corner of our country and bridge the huge divide between urban and rural education, said Karanvir Singh, founder and CEO of Pune-based edtech platform Pariksha.
During a panel discussion on the “Role of edtech in making education system more inclusive” on Plunge Daily Twitter Spaces, Karanvir said students in rural India have suffered largely due to poor infrastructure and accessibility challenges.
“In rural India, a large number of schools are in abysmal state, quality of content is also not upto the mark. So, the only way that we can bridge this gap between urban and rural education is with the help of technology. With the emergence of various edtech companies, quality content, great teaching pedagogy are being made available to them,” he added.
Commenting on the impact of consolidation on the edtech industry, the Pariksha CEO said,” If you look at the educational problem in our country, it is multi-layered and deep-rooted, so I don’t think that just one or two companies will be able to address all the challenges that we face in the education ecosystem”
“Consolidation is a natural progression in any growing industry. It is good for the ecosystem because then it creates opportunities for newer players to figure out newer segments and address newer problems,” he added.
Noting the importance of the outcome-driven edtech model, Karanvir said, “If you don’t deliver results, no matter how high valuation you’re commanding in the market, you are out to fail. As long as education technology companies deliver outcomes. valuation will not be a challenge, in any sense, higher or lower.”
Sharing his views on the impact of digital fatigue, he said, “As a platform operating in tier 2& 3 cities and rural parts of the country, we have seen little to no impact due to this phenomenon. That could be the case in the urban part of our country where probably students are over-exposed to the entire digital ecosystem.”
“There is a huge shift in terms of accessibility and adaptability of education that we have seen after COVID. I also believe hybrid models are the way forward where students will have the best of online model as well as brick and mortar experience being made available in a very student friendly outcome based environment, he added.
