Ed-Tech Sector In India

WHY IN NEWS:

• As per media reports, around 10,000 people were laid off from the EdTech segment with at least 22 companies in the sector cutting jobs.

STATISTICS:

• The Indian EdTech industry was valued at USD 750 million in 2020 and is expected to reach USD 4 billion by 2025 at a CAGR of 39.77%. 
• There are around 4,530 EdTech startups in India, out of which 435 were founded between 2019 and 2020.

WHAT IS ED-TECH?

• Educational technology or Ed-Tech is the combined use of computer hardware, software, and educational theory and practice to facilitate learning
• It encompasses several domains including learning theory, computer-based training, online learning, and m-learning, where mobile technologies are used.

POTENTIAL OF ED-TECH:

• Personalization of education
  • The most promising aspect Ed-tech is its ability to personalise content for individual students.
  • This addresses one of the most binding constraints on teachers: a heterogeneity of learning levels in the classroom.
  • According to the 2018 ASER report, about half the children in Class 5 cannot read a simple Class 2 level text.
  • Edtech can be used to “Teach at the Right Level” (TaRL) by analysing patterns of student errors and providing immediate feedback.
• Plays a crucial role in delivering holistic learning:
  • Ed-tech helps in developing creative assessments to test socio-emotional skills >> to reorient the entire education system towards holistic learning.
  • Tracking the progress of learners in real-time through technology, can bring large benefits in terms of student support, within and outside schools.
• :Enhancing educational productivity by improving rates of learning
  • Ed-tech has the potential to provide innovative, cost-effective methods to transform education and can play a powerful role in achieving universal access to quality education for all children by 2030
• Capitalise on the paradigm change: 
  • The outbreak of Covid-19 faciliatated a paradigm shift to the unconventional mode of online learning. There was a 30% increase in the screen time on education applications on smartphones since the lockdown. 
• Enrich classroom experience:
  • Edtech can also enrich the classroom experience by consistently delivering high quality audio-visual, interactive content that may supplement the teacher’s own knowledge and effectively capture student attention.
• Reinforce the culture of learning in the community as a whole
  • Ed-tech presents a big opportunity to nurture the parent-school partnership
  • Research suggests that a large percentage of variation in learning is a function of the household.
  • Parents often fail to take necessary steps to support their child’s learning, due to an information gap and an overestimation of their child’s capabilities.
  • Inexpensive tech intervention such as timely text messages with information, questions and reminders can help overcome these barriers, and improve the engagement of low-income parents in the their children’s education.
• Fourth Industrial Revolution:
  • The digital penetration aided Fourth Industrial Revolution by can be used to deliver a higher quality of education by blending offline and online learning.

ISSUES WITH ED-TECH:

• Privacy risks associated with Ed-Techs
  • To perform the process of learning customisation, the ed-tech apps collect large quantities of data from the learners through the gadgets that the students use.
  • The lack of a regulatory framework in India along the lines of the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) in Europe could impinge on the privacy of students
• Technological Constraints:
  • Lack of e-resources:
    • Students, who do not have access to e-resources (computers, laptops, internet connectivity), will not be able to attend classes from home.
  • Internet access:
    • India still not achieved universal internet penetration
    • Three-fourths of students in India did not have access to the internet at home, according to a 2017-18 all-India NSO survey
    • Moreover there is absence of adequate speed of the internet
• In contradiction with Right to Education:
  • Technology is not affordable to all, shifting towards online education completely is like taking away the Right to Education of those who cannot access the technology.
• Lack of comprehensive policy on tech based education:
  • India lack a proper policy on medium of online education, digital infrastructure etc.
• Gaps in teachers education:
  • Teachers are ill-equipped with required skills and infrastructure, as teacher education in India does not give importance to Ed-tech
• Widens inequality:
  • Students in richer households have better access to internet and computers >> hence they are the only beneficiaries of online education programmes
  • 55% of students among the top 20% of households by monthly per capita expenditure (MPCE) knew how to use a computer and internet while these proportions were only 9% and 10% among the bottom 20%.
• Pedagogical issues leading to bad quality education:
  • Online education has certain barriers in ensuring smooth teacher-student interaction >> hence result in poor quality of education
• Lack of practical Learning:
  • Most of the subjects like beauty culture, fashion design and tailoring, office management, travel and tourism, web design etc need practical learning so it is difficult to teach them from a distance.
• Gap in digital literacy:
  • As many as 76% of students in India in the 5-35 age group did not know how to use a computer.
• No opportunity to learn social skills:
  • Traditional classroom organisations like schools and colleges, as social space (whereby a student not just learns the academic knowledge but many social skills also), are indispensable.
• All subjects can’t be taught online:
  • Certain subjects required direct interaction between teacher and student – which may not be possible in online education ex; Music, painting etc.
• Lack of standardised content for regional languages:
  • Children studying regional languages are at a disadvantage as there is not much standardised content available yet online for them.
• Deep-rooted conventional educational culture in India:
  • Question remains whether the EdTech sector will survive the pandemic or will fizzle out because of return to the traditional mode of education once the classrooms resume

STEPS TAKEN BY GOVERNMENT:

• Schemes:
  • National Mission on Education through ICT (NMEICT):
    • To leverage the potential of ICT to make the best quality content accessible to all learners in the country free of cost.
• E- learning platforms:
  • SWAYAM:
    • The Study Webs of Active Learning for Young Aspiring Minds' (SWAYAM) is an integrated platform for offering online courses, covering school (9th to 12th) to Postgraduate Level
  • SWAYAM Prabha:
    • It is an initiative to provide 32 High Quality Educational Channels through DTH (Direct to Home) across the length and breadth of the country on a 24X7 basis.
  • Diksha:
    • Provides teacher training courses, teaching resources such as lesson plans and assessments for teachers, to find out their strengths and areas of improvement
  • E-pathasala:
    • It is a joint initiative of MHRD and NCERT, which has been developed for showcasing and disseminating all educational e-resources including textbooks, audio, video, periodicals, and a variety of other print and non-print materials for students, teachers, parents, researchers and educators.
• Policy initiatives:
  • National Education Policy (NEP) 2020:
    • India’s NEP 2020 is responsive to the clarion call to integrate technology at every level of instruction.
    • It envisions the establishment of an autonomous body, the National Education Technology Forum (NETF), to spearhead efforts towards providing a strategic thrust to the deployment and use of technology.
  • Pragyata:
    • It is a set of digital education guidelines
• Institutions:
  • The National Education Technology Forum (NETF)
  • NIOS (National Institute of Open Schooling)
• Budget proposal:
  • Budget 2020-21 proposed to start degree level full-fledged online education programme.
  • This shall be offered only by institutions who are ranked within top 100 in the National Institutional Ranking framework
• NROER (National Repository of Open Educational Resources):
  • To bring together all digital and digitisable resources across all stages of school education and teacher education.
• National Digital Library of India (NDL):
  • It is a project to develop a framework of virtual repository of learning resources with a single-window search facility
• Free and Open Source Software for Education (FOSSEE):
  • It is a project promoting the use of open source software in educational institutions
• E-Yantra:
  • It is a project for enabling effective education across engineering colleges in India on embedded systems and robotics

BEST PRACTICE:

• Samarth in Gujarat
  • It is facilitating the online professional development of lakhs of teachers in collaboration with IIM-Ahmedabad
• ‘Hamara Vidhyalaya’ in Namsai district, Arunachal Pradesh
  • It is fostering tech-based performance assessments
• Kerala’s Aksharavriksham initiative
  • It is focusing on digital “edutainment” to support learning and skill development via games and activities.

WAY FORWARD

• Comprehensive Ed-tech Policy:
  • Access: providing access to learning, especially to disadvantaged groups
  • Enabling processes of teaching, learning, and evaluation
  • Teaching: facilitating teacher training and continuous professional development
  • Governance: Improving governance systems including planning, management, and monitoring processes.
• Cross-platform integration:
  • In the short to medium-term, the policy formulation and planning process must strive to enable convergence across schemes (education, skills, digital governance, and finance)
  • There is also a need to foster integration of solutions through public-private partnerships, factor in voices of all stakeholders, and bolster cooperative federalism across all levels of government.
• Need to formulate an ethics policy for EdTech companies.
  • Such a policy draft should be circulated both online and offline for discussions and criticism.
• In the long term:
  • A repository of the best-in-class technology solutions, good practices and lessons from successful implementation must be curated.
  • The NITI Aayog’s India Knowledge Hub and the Ministry of Education’s DIKSHA and ShaGun platforms can facilitate and amplify such learning.
• Addressing digital divide:
  • Special attention must be paid to address the digital divide at two levels - access and skills to effectively use technology.

PRACTICE QUESTION:

Q. “The pandemic-induced learning crisis and the Fourth Industrial Revolution have made it necessary to reimagine education and align it with the unprecedented technological transformation”. Discuss