The landscape of education as an ecosystem has undergone quite the transformation in the wake of COVID-19 pandemic. 28th Convergence India & IoT India 2020 expo hosted the third in a series of well-received webinars to deliberate the evolving face of e-education industry in India; as leading learning experts, key policymakers and industry leaders conferred over creating future-ready sustainable digital learning infrastructure to leverage emerging technologies.
With prevailing uncertainty on when schools, colleges and skill centres will resume, digital education has emerged as a vital solution. COVID-19 has produced an opportunity for e-learning to take centre stage. India’s ed-tech ecosystem is reaping the benefits of social distancing, whilst bridging the trust deficit they had faced before. Ed-tech companies have also begun offering free access to their platforms, and have witnessed a massive surge in new user numbers.
Chairperson Dr. S.S. Mantha, Former Chairman, All India Council for Technical Education inaugurated the webinar with some pointed observations, “Some universities have already moved on to blended learning (a mix of online & classroom learning), especially in the tech space. In the post-pandemic world, blended learning will pave the way, leading to accelerated virtual universities, changing the face of industry 4.0. As we move forward from the pandemic, we’ll need a lot of 21st Century skills, and the future should require 1/8th traditional modules, and the rest will be a mix. We’ve noticed with e-learning where the content is intuitive and interesting, students are engaged by it. But there are issues of poor internet connections or no access which the government should step in to fix. Cable service providers may be a viable solution to promote distance learning via TV sets that exist in most homes.”
Moderator: Aarti Harbhajanka, Co-Founder and Managing Director, Primus Partners led insightful discussions on the matter, engaging the panel on scintillating questions. “COVID-19 has been a nudge that e-learning industry needed, and the possibilities are enormous,” she observed.
Shining light on some much-coveted good news, Samar Bajaj, Michael and Susan Dell Foundation said, “Education is the one tool that can bring about inter-generational economic growth. Several states have launched various initiatives including ‘Subah das se barah, ghar bane pathshala” (10-am 12 pm is time for homeschooling).’ WhatsApp groups have been an efficient way of teachers being connected to their students, and up to 60-70% classrooms have shown up.”
Noting that there exist pessimistic numbers about Indian youth employability, but we need to focus on the positives; Kounal Gupta, Founder & CEO, Henry Harvin Education said, “AICTE says that 54% of Indian youth is not job-ready, while 50% of our youth according to WHO is not 21st Century job-skilled. We have reverse-engineered this create a 3-pronged approach- mandatory digital training, mandatory hiring by companies & digital transformation. Instead of focussing only on academia, we must strive to bring industry closer to education and make them compatible.”
Speaking of how the COVID-19 pandemic gave e-learning sector a push, just like demonetization gave impetus to fintech, Amit Goyal, Head- India & SE Asia, edX opined “edX is a joint venture between MIT & Harvard University, with 30 million learners worldwide and India being our 2nd largest market. Till a few years ago, online classrooms meant teachers would simply record a class in session and upload it online. Online learning is however quite different, and needs to be interactive, and geared pointedly at the viewer.”
Raising a salute to India’s educators Divya Lal, Founder & MD, Fliplearn Education said, “When schools countrywide shut down on March 21st, teachers who had never used their videos, turned them on and opened up their e-classrooms. Lockdowns have increased our traffic to upwards of 200,000 students. Our growth in the last two years has been what it wasn’t in a year. We need to focus on e-learning solutions that are platform-agnostic, work across the nation and deliver high-quality products for effective impact.”
Citing a recently-concluded survey Charu Malhotra, Co-Founder and Managing Director, Primus Partners revealed some thought-provoking numbers. “Out of 900 responders including teachers & students, about 89% had access to digital learning. The difference was noted across sectors- with government schools showing daily 1-2 hours of e-learning, while private ones reported 5-6 hours/day. It’s noteworthy that almost 25% students lamented that these modules were not suffice to clear their doubts, whilst 50% teachers echoed the sentiment. While e-education fills a big gap, it has a big missing human element.”
Talking of their company’s focus on innovation, Sushil Mungekar, Founder and CEO, ENpower said, “We build on the social dimension and inculcate entrepreneurship & design learning from a very young age. Working with 200 students in Maharashtra who dropped out of school, we realized the problem was not how to learn, but instead why to learn. With education, we believe that 4 Rs that need to be kept in mind: namely, Reach, Relevance, Relatability and Responsibility. The source of knowledge for both children and teachers is the same, and it’s not just a question of teachers going online. Innovative methods of learning such as gamification, creative assignments and design learning have proven to be a lot more impactful.”
