Can American EdTech Companies Keep Pace with India?

One industry that is giving other industries a lesson better yet, a crash course in growth is the edtech industry, especially in India. One online tutoring firm, vedanta, recently went from $600 million to being valued at $1 billion as the way education has been shifted because of the COVID 19 pandemic. We asked Dr. Dean Cantu, associate Dean of education at Bradley University. How effective is the free to paid pipeline for retaining online learning students on an edtech platform? Over the course of the past year and a half, we've experienced an unprecedented global shift from in-person teaching and learning to online instruction and remote learning, which has changed education both dramatically and indelibly. This change has occurred on a scale that has never been witnessed before, impacting 1.2 billion plus students in over 190 countries across the globe. In addition to transforming education, the COVID 19 pandemic has also served as a catalyst for a global edtech boom that was long overdue. Indeed, one researcher has referred to this as Education's Netflix moment. Evidence of this transformation can be found in the investment of venture capital and edtech, which is accelerated at an unprecedented pace that is currently on track to grow nearly 20% annually through 2028. The combination of this pedagogical pivot to online education, combined with advances in digital technology, has the potential, according to a 2020 Microsoft position paper, to truly transform education. One of the drivers for this transformation is Ed tech, which, according to one researcher, has been placed at the head of the class. Examples range from distance learning management systems, for example, class Dojo and seesaw, and self-directed learning content such as Khan Academy and Quizlet to tools for creating digital learning content like thing link and Nearpod and collaboration platforms that support live video communication, such as Zoom and Microsoft Teams. It takes role in helping to define the teaching and learning environment of the 21st century has never been greater. This digital transformation of the education ecosystem is perhaps best illustrated by the exponential growth that the edtech market in India, which is forecasted to increase 6 to 10-fold over the course of the next five years. As an example, there are currently 4,500 active edtech startups in India today, and about one in 10 were just established during the past two years. This is a result of the pivot to online education due to the pandemic. The inflow of investment and upgradation in edtech, the growing number of internet users and greater access to smartphones. As a result, the edtech market in India is expected to grow from $700 million today to $30 billion within the next decade. Concomitant with edtech boom, Google edtech companies like chamath have launched free content to retain their market share. It's too early to tell whether they're free to paid pipeline for attracting and retaining online learners will prove successful. However, the potential for edtech sector to, in the words of Miguel Cardona, the US Secretary of education, reimagine education and make it more equitable for students. Furthest from opportunity makes this experiment worthy of the investment of time and money. Edtech is just starting to hit its peak in the market, so to learn more about the industry and how it looks to capitalize on its growth. Be sure to head the market scale as well as subscribe.