The Ed Sector Will Double

Among the sectors that responded the fastest to the covid-led nationwide lockdown, education perhaps took a lead of sorts.

This was primarily due to the role that technology played in ensuring that educators were able to continue with their daily activities with students across courses. Education technology, or ed tech, hence, has undergone a tactical shift in terms of demand. Whether it is regulators or educational institutes including schools, colleges and universities, all stakeholders have moved to the online space to impart education under these unprecedented times.

Serial Entrepreneur

As the executive chairman and co-founder of online education platform upGrad, Ronnie Screwvala, who has donned many hats as a serial entrepreneur, believes that this sector is set to double in the post Covid world. He explains that the pandemic has led ed tech players to deeply invest in learning experiences. Several ed tech players also have the advantage to better understand what is required in this space.

The likes of upGrad for instance have invested four years to understand student behaviour and how the likes of ‘dropout’ can be controlled in the digital world. Launched in 2015, upGrad is an online learning platform catering to the higher education segment providing industry-relevant programmes. The company is a B2C (business to consumer) enterprise, aimed at creating an immersive learning experience.

“There is a deep sense of learning experience that needs to come whether it is the K12 or higher education or test-prep sector. And the companies that have been around for the last four to five years in building ed tech platforms even before this present pandemic which has only made it more acute, are the ones who have deeply invested in learning experience and insuring that online learning is equal to offline learning in many aspects,” says Screwvala.

A Sense Of Urgency

The first-generation entrepreneur further said that there is a sense of urgency that has crept in for most of the people, which he believes is a “good” sign. “The educational institutions and the government have woken up and are evangelising this change,” he pointed out.

Online Education Hub

Screwvala also pointed out that given the sheer dynamics in the Indian economy, with data proliferation and changing consumer habits and aspirations, India can be a global destination for online learning. “The country does not lack when compared to others on any count,” he stated.

He also cautioned that post-Covid, the education industry will double in terms of both investment and consumption. This in itself will bring additional responsibilities on all the stakeholders to not only understand the opportunity but to also better structure the sector that he believes has changed irreversibly.

upGrad currently has a paid subscriber base of 30,000 students and the company aspires to add five to seven thousand students per quarter. The online learning platform has collaborated with several universities but it has no plans to establish any kind of an offline presence. Screwvala remind, “To get to scale, it needs to be 100 per cent online”.