EdTech Boom In The Time of Pandemic

For India’s education sector, it is the best of times, it is the worst of times. In March 2020, the ­COVID-19 pandemic brought all ­educational institutions—schools, ­colleges, universities—across the country to a screeching halt. Students were ­confined to their homes for almost a year, and  forced into online classes that were no match for the real classroom ­expe­rie­nce. Yet, turning adversity into an opportunity, the Indian e-learning market has begun to surge at an exponential level. In a country where Goddess Saraswati symbolises the motivation for education, the e-learning market is expected to record historic growth rates as a majority of educational institutions migrated to e-learning and adopted freely available technologies to keep learning and education alive amidst the pandemic.

Aided by strong Covid tailwinds, the $735-million EdTech market, which comprises less than 1 per cent of India’s $90-billion private education market, is expected to clock 120 per cent growth in 2020-21 and exit the year at $1.7 billion, according to an ‘EdTech in India’ report by Omidyar Network India and RedSeer Consulting.

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Yet, despite the surge of online education, the report of the National Sample Survey Organisation’s (NSSO) 75th round of sample survey reveals a stark digital divide across states, cities, villages, genders and even income groups. For instance, only 20 per cent of Indians above the age of 5 years have basic digital literacy, doubling to 40 per cent between 15 and 29 years (which includes all high school and college students). In other words, Covid may have fast-tracked India’s transition to online learning, but for digital education to be successful, the nation will need to bridge a yawning digital divide.

First, the good news

India’s e-learning market, according to EdTech experts, is the second-largest in the world after the US. India is well ahead of China, South Korea and the UK. In the e-learning market, India is the Asian leader, the engine pulling the economy of e-learning in the largest continent. No surprise that the online education market in India is poised to grow by $14.33 bn during 2020-24, progressing at a CAGR of 21 per cent during the forecast period, according to a market estimate by Business Week in 2020.  Even the pandemic has not dampened the spirits of the eduprene­urs involved in expanding the e-learning market. The number of internet users is expected to reach 730 million by 2021, almost double from 432 million in 2016, according to an estimate by KPMG. The size of the market worldwide surpassed $200 billion in 2019 (approximately a quarter of it is the Indian e-learning market). The global e-learning market is anticipated to grow at over 8 per cent CAGR between 2020 and 2026, while the Indian market is projected to grow at more than double the global rate.

In sheer investment terms, Indian EdTech startups have grabbed a total investment of $2.22 billion in 2020 as compared to $553 million in 2019, according to Indian Private Equity and Venture Capital Association (IVCA) and PGA Labs data. At least 92 players attracted funding in 2020, out of which 61 players received seed funding.

‘The Great Un-Lockdown: Indian EdTech’ report mentioned that Indian online education platforms have raised $4 billion during 2016-20. “Indian edtech startups received a total investment of $2.22 billion in 2020, compared to $553 million in 2019. K-12 (kindergarten to class 12) and Test Preparation companies accounted for the largest share ($1.98 billion), followed by Continued Learning ($142 million), Higher Education ($84 million), Pre-K ($12 million) and B2B EdTech companies ($7 million),” the report said.

Led by private players, the Indian ­online education market is highly ­fragmented with around 3,500 EdTech start-ups operating in this fiercely ­competitive sector. Eyeing ­opportuni­ties for rapid growth, many foreign players have entered the Indian online education industry. Byju’s, Unacademy, Vedantu, Udemy, Coursera and Cuemath are a few key players in the ­industry, catering to the requirements of different niche audiences.

Byju’s, Unacademy and Vedantu accounted for the highest share of funding in the past five years, says ‘The Great Un-Lockdown’ report. Byju’s raised the highest capital in these years at $2.32 billion (today’s valuation at $12 billion), followed by Unacademy at $354 million (valuation at $2 billion). The report estimates that education is a $117 billion market in India with around 360 million learners in 2019-20. Around $49 billion is spent on school education, 66 per cent of which is spent on primary education and 27 per cent on secondary education. The education market is expected to grow $225 billion by 2025 at 14 per cent CAGR.

The top 10 Indian EdTech companies are BYJU’s, Cuemath, Unacademy, Toppr, Vedantu, Educomp Solutions, Entri, CollegeDekho, Educart and Upgrad, each catering to a different slice of the market.  

EdTech companies with a social mission

A new genre of EdTech companies—not-for-profit digital education companies (career counsellors) with a social mission—have also begun to blossom. They target students from remote regions, who cannot easily access internet connections with adequate bandwidth.

Listen to the story of MyTransform.com

The inspiration came from Vidhu Vinod Chopra’s 3 Idiots, in which filmstar Aamir Khan plays the lead role. The founders even visited Ladakh where the film was shot. Rajeev Bhadauria, co-founder of MyTransform.com, is an experienced HR manager who partnered with Roopali Mehra, an accounting and finance graduate from London School of Economics, and Rohit Choudhuri, a BITS Pilani graduate, to form a Gurgaon-based career education EdTech company in March 2015.

The not-for-profit organisation caters to a gap in the EdTech market—for career counsellors, especially in remote rural areas. “We wanted a niche market, away from commercial EdTech companies like Byju’s,” says Bhadauria. “We felt there is a serious mismatch in the education sector between curriculum taught to the students and the job opportunities existing in the market. We focused on alignment between industry and education, and decided to start with students of classes 9 to 12 as that’s the time when they make career choices.” They conduct two tests for each student: personality assessment test and cluster survey for job clusters divided into six fields and 32 ­sub-clusters.  “About 9.5 crore students annually study between classes 9 and 12. The aim is to reach almost half of them, 5 crore by 2025,” adds Bhadauria. MyTransform.com has already signed MoUs with states for 24 lakh students. They have zeroed in on states such as Jammu and Kashmir (especially Ganderbal and Udhampur districts), and Haryana.

The state governments provide help with costs. The next destinations for MyTransform.com are Bihar, Jharkhand and Tamil Nadu. Bhadauria says that they initially raised half a million US dollars and later relied on either government assistance or corporate social responsibility funding from private companies such as Vedanta and Infosys.  

Now, the bad news

Digital education in India suffers from a cruel paradox. The NSSO report reveals the following: across India, only one in 10 households has a computer—whether a desktop, laptop or tablet. Only about 25 per cent of all homes have internet facilities, accessed via a fixed-mobile network using any device, including smartphones. There is a gaping urban-rural divide in digital access. While 42 per cent of urban homes have internet access, only 15 per cent of rural homes are connected to the internet.

Moreover, having internet access is no guarantee that one can use it. As mentioned earlier, only one-fifth of Indians above the age of five have basic digital literacy and only 40 per cent in the high school and college-going age group (15 to 29 years). Additionally, there is a vast regional disparity in access to the internet. While 55 per cent of all homes in Delhi have internet access, Odisha is at the bottom of the ladder with only 10 per cent of homes having access to the internet. Even richer southern states like Karnataka and Tamil Nadu have only 20 per cent internet penetration. Kerala and Himachal Pradesh are the only two states where more than half of all households have internet access.

The biggest divide is economic status, which the NSSO marks by dividing the population into five equal groups, or quintiles, based on their monthly per capita expenditure. In Odisha, for instance, while almost 63 per cent of homes in the top urban quintile have internet facilities, an abysmal 2.4 per cent of homes in the poorest quintile of rural Odisha have internet facility. Assam displays the starkest inequality, with 80 per cent of the richest urban homes having internet access, a facility unavailable to 94 per cent of the poorest rural homes across the state. A stark gender digital divide also exists between boys and girls.  

Kerala shows the least inequality between rich and poor, with almost 40 per cent of the poorest rural homes having access to the internet, while 67 per cent of the richest urban homes have access to the internet.

In Himachal Pradesh, 40 per cent of the lowest rural quintile have access to the internet.  A stark gender digital divide exists between male and female children in this state too.  

In this regard, an Oxfam survey of 2020 is an eye-opener. The survey reveals that 50 per cent of parents found internet speed and signal strength to be an issue. A third of the parents said data was too expensive and they could not afford it. This is compounded by challenges such as not having the right device or being unable to navigate the software. In total, 80 per cent of parents faced challenges in supporting their children in accessing digital education.

While parents and children faced issues in accessing education digitally, a staggering 84 per cent of teachers reported difficulties in delivering the content, and two out of every five lacked the necessary smartphone/device. Less than 20 per cent of teachers reported receiving guidance on delivering education content digitally.

The most preferred mode of education content delivery was WhatsApp. As high as 75 per cent of public schools (government-run) and 57 per cent of private schools used WhatsApp for education delivery. Only 25 per cent of students in private schools reported attending online classes, with the vast majority simply receiving instructions via WhatsApp, YouTube and phone calls. In government schools, hardly anyone attended online classes, claims the Oxfam report.

NDA government’s initiatives to bridge the digital divide

What has the NDA government done to bridge this yawning digital divide? The Narendra Modi government came up with the idea of the Swayam Prabha TV channel to support and reach those who do not have internet access. Massive Open Online Course (MOOC)­—relating to grades 9 to 12 of open schooling—are uploaded on the Swayam portal.

By the end of 2019, about 2,640 courses were launched; 11 online degrees and 292 ­­micro-credentials were offered to students. The government claims that about 24 million learners have gained from the initiative. Besides, the ministry of human resource development (MHRD) claims to have initiated the Digital Infrastructure for Knowledge Sharing (DIKSHA) platform in 2017 for grades 1 to 12.

DIKSHA is the ‘one nation, one digital platform’ for school education in India, part of PM eVidya policy announced under the Aatmanirbhar Bharat Abhiyan. MHRD has launched Shiksha Vani, DAISY by NIOS for the differently abled, e-Pathshala, National Repository of Open Educational Resources (NROER) to develop e-content and energised books, telecast through TV channels, e-learning portals, webinars and other digital initiatives for children in remote areas who have no access to online facilities (especially for grades 1 to 5).

Some of the key digital initiatives by state governments are the following: Social Media Interface for Learning Engagement (SMILE) in Rajasthan, Project Home Classes in Jammu, Padhai Tunhar Dwar (education at your doorstep) in Chhattisgarh, Unnayan initiatives in Bihar through the portal and mobile application, Mission Buniyaad in NCT of Delhi, Kerala’s educational TV channel (hi-tech school programme), e-scholar portal as well as free online courses for teachers in Meghalaya. Telangana has online certificate programmes for teachers on ‘management of mental well-being during Covid’.

Yet, Sam Pitroda, who was advisor to the UPA government on technology missions, is sceptical. “Digital education is not about videos of lectures on blackboards by teachers on the internet. It is about appropriate platforms, technology, tools, interactivity, curation, content and a lot more. In this regard, India’s digital education plans are underprepared,” says Pitroda.

The entire EdTech revolution during 2020 took place outside formal institutions of education. It was led by the private sector, not the public sector. According to Pitroda, government schools and colleges across the country do not have adequate resources to provide digital education.

Making the best of EdTech means getting several things right. An important lesson is to make sure that EdTech narrows, rather than widens, inequalities in education.  The potential for EdTech will only be realised if teachers embrace it readily. Teachers are right if they ask for evidence whether the product works and is not only hype. Government initiatives should not be empty claims meant for the next election. Such initiatives can be fruitful, but they must be subjected to surveys at the ground level to measure whether they work, and how effective the product and the process are.

Finally, EdTech can become a brain gain during a pandemic, but is no alternative to the traditional classroom where students learn from interaction with each other as much as from the teacher. EdTech becomes a necessity during pandemics, but during normal times, digital education and e-learning can only be good supplements to the traditional classroom experience.

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Byju’s

Founders Byju Raveendran, Divya Gokulnath

Investors Black Rock, Sands Capital, Alkeon Capital, Qatar Investment Authority

Launched in 2015, online tutoring startup Byju’s is the only Indian app that has been ranked among the world’s top 10 most downloaded education apps on Google Playstore during the lockdown. Byju’s is the common name of the ­company Think and Learn Private Ltd. Byju’s learning app offers personalised ­programmes for school students across grades 4-12. The app has over 47 million registered students and 3.5 million annual paid subscriptions currently. Byju’s for kids focuses on early learning for children in classes 1-3. They currently have more than 9,000 employees. A few of their well-known subsidiaries are WhiteHat Jr and SPAN Thoughtworks Private Limited.

Cuemath

Founders Manan Khurma

Investors Google, Sequoia India, Unitus Seed Fund and Alok Mittal

Founded in 2013 as an after-school math enrichment program, Cuemath focuses on gamified learning and has revolutionised the way math is perceived by teachers and students. It focuses on ‘learn-by-doing’ and aims to promote ‘out-of-the-box’ thinking. Cuemath relies largely on women tutors. It has over 1,200 educators and had raised 5.5 million dollars in series B funding until 2019.

Toppr

Founders Zishaan Hayath, Hemanth Goteti

Investors Fidelity, Saif, Helion InnoVen Capital, FIL Capital Management, Kaizen Management Advisors Pvt Ltd

Founded in 2013 and based in Mumbai, Toppr was created with the aim of providing online education to students from classes 5 to 12. Toppr provides preparatory courses for boards, JEE, NEET, AIIMS and CLAT, among other exams. It currently has over 10 million students registered on its platform. Toppr has raised about $35 million in funding.

Unacademy

Founders Gaurav Munjal, Roman Saini, Hemesh Singh

Founded in Bangalore in 2015, Unacademy provides learning materials and video lectures for all major entrance exams in India from JEE and NEET to UPSC. It is a top choice among students. You can view videos, watch demonstrations and even download PDF notes offered by educators. Today, Unacademy has over 12,000 educators offering multiple free and paid courses. It has received $110 million in funding from multiple investors.

Vedantu

Founders Vamsi Krishna, Pulkit Jain, Saurabh Saxena, Anand Prakash

Investors Essel Omidyar Network, GGV Capital, Legend Capital Ohana Holdings, Tiger Global Management, Omidyar Network

Vedantu is an online interactive teaching platform where teachers can tutor students in a real-time virtual learning environment. It’s an in-house tech made by Vedantu called Whiteboard Audio Video Environment (WAVE).

Graphics by Praveen Kumar.G