The Edu-tech Confluence

India is one of the fastest growing world economies and has the world’s largest K-12 education system with 260 million enrolments. But we consistently rank low in all global education assessments due to issues such as lack of good teachers, the one-size-fits-all teaching approach, and learning driven by fear of exams. Children are still getting trained to solve questions, but not to ask questions. Hence, the element of ‘curiosity’ is getting lost in the process. The need is to transition from the practice of rote memorisation to learning for life, and technology is playing a big role in this.

Today, technology has emerged as a key enabling element in the education sector, and will continue to play that role even 30 years from now. It will continue to shape teacher-student relationship by offering better accessibility, distribution and formats of delivery. Technology-enabled learning fosters interactivity, and also facilitates access to quality learning, irrespective of a student’s geographical location or proficiency level. Innovative and interactive teaching tools enable teachers to shape the lives of scores of students even in the remotest corners of the country. Digitisation of education is more than just pushing syllabus onto a digital platform and distributing it. It creates avenues to contextualise and personalise any information to fit the needs of every student; this results in better learning. It also uses tools to simplify complex content to allow for quicker assimilation and better retention. For instance, with real-life teachers and technology as an enabler, the delivery of concepts becomes very easy, effective and engaging.

Integrating technology in education not only increases engagement but also simplifies the way students learn. Technology today offers a combination of teachers, video lessons and interactive games, all delivered through a personalised learning platform. The use of technology has already shown some early signs of the traditional classroom-teaching model getting transformed into digital learning programmes, which are highly self-driven and backed by active learning. In fact, data science helps teachers understand the learning footprints of students, enabling them to  make the right interventions to improve the learning experience.

With time, we will see a host of new innovative tech-powered learning products in the Indian market that will empower and promote better learning experiences right from the formative years. Case in point, new technologies such as Virtual Reality (VR) and Augmented Reality (AR) will play a major role in making learning more of an immersive experience and extremely engaging. While both VR and AR are used extensively by the gaming industry, early indications are that they can show great results in education too. AR and VR can engage students in a completely new way that is more fun and experiential.

A lot has been happening in this space. With the right investments and plans and technology as a core enabler, it can change the way teachers teach and students learn.

In the next 30 years, education in India will witness a paradigm shift with the right innovations and use of technology as the base. We will see more Indian companies take the lead globally in designing, developing and creating learning experiences that will redefine the way children learn. With technology enabling teachers and educational organisations to solve the issue of access to quality education and teachers, the impact created is going to be huge. I am confident that very exciting times are ahead of us in the ed-tech sector.