Future Of Online Education In India
The growth of online education has been increasing in the last few months owing to the dual effect of the pandemic as well as greater use of Smartphones and internet. Schools and colleges which were shut down, decided to use the tech route to reach out to students and finish their syllabus. Apps like Zoom and Skype, saw massive downloads among the students. Now that it’s been over 6 months, we need to ask some questions regarding the future of the education sector. Is the shift to online short term? Are students feeling comfortable? Here, we will talk about some important reasons why online learning is growing so fast and whether it can sustain in the future.
- why The Sudden Shift?
while many people blindly believe that it’s because of the corona virus that people are shifting to the online mode, the reality is slightly different. Ed-tech as a sector, was growing heavily even before the virus struck with billion dollar valuations that are creating more unicorns in India we saw a dramatic rise in online courses in data science cyber security communication law and mostly professionals were taking courses with time school student and tutors got comfortable with digital classrooms and that led to improved online course materials Let us discuss some vital points that contributed to the Growth of online learning and analyse each one of them.
- Affordability
Online education provides a more equitable platform to students from all economic backgrounds. Tutors of different experience levels charge different amounts that provide a better choice for the students. While an experienced tutor can charge Rs 2000/hour a newcomer can teach you at 10% of the amount. This allows students of socially disadvantaged backgrounds to get better access to education.
- Availability
The availability of a large pool of tutors allows students to get their queries resolved quickly. In the traditional format, a student had to wait for the next class to clear a doubt wasting 3-4 days of his precious time, while now there are instant solutions. Be it mock tests, descriptive, MCQ or a theoretical explanation, tutors and student forums are active to provide a quick solution to the problem.
- Employ ability
Millions of tutors are enrolling themselves as tutors in multiple learning portals. Be it SEARCHTEACHERS, or any other website, the exponential rise of tutor registration is an indication that the youth today takes Tutor seriously, as a long term career. By 2021, it is expected that million tutors are going to sign up to share their valuable knowledge, while earning a good amount every month.
- Government Initiative
The Government of India, has launched several schemes that promote digital learning in a big way. In fact the Digital India program along with Swayam have given a great opportunity for students, professionals and learners to register in academic or vocational courses and up skill themselves. With the kind of promotions it has made, the future of education in India is surely going to be digital.
- Internet
Cheap internet in India is fueling online learning and video consumption. In the last 4-5 years,, most tutors and coaching academies were uploading 1.5-2 hour lectures on YouTube which was garnering a lot of views. Apart from this, schools and colleges created their own channels and web portals to provide updates of exams, syllabus, dates, eligibility, instructions and conference lectures. This made students enjoy the best educational content not only in India but also from outside. With an average price of Rs4 per GB of data, the internet is growing faster and by 2021, 735 million users are expected to use it. Well, that’s twice the population of the US!
- YOUTH
A young population is the biggest asset of India. With around 600 million people in India, under 25 years of age, online education is going to thrive here without a doubt. This is simply because people want to see new things and try out different methods. Traditional classrooms have bored a lot of them and with the push for online classes, the future is quite bright. Even though there are issues like connectivity, urban rural divide, challenges in doing assignments and homework, the state and central governments push for a better and upgraded learning environment will manage these problems in times to come.
- INCOME
The income level of India is rising and as more people are uplifted from poverty, the spending is bound to increase. Even in Rural India, the economy is improving and most of the population are more than willing to do and learn things online. India already earns 30% higher than it was five years back and as more families shift to the cities and join the workforce, more money is going to flow in. With this, the online education sector is going to bloom faster than expected.
Most of the money is being spent in res-killing, test preparation and vocational courses. As the exams are getting harder every year, more detailed preparations are necessary. Professionals are learning IT skills that are providing them employment benefits including salary hike and promotions. Also, a lot of vocational courses like music and painting are being learnt online. People are also pursuing their hobbies like cooking through online channels. In short, the market is buzzing with millions of enrollments, course materials and video lectures.
What Could Be The Future of Online Education?
- Gamification
Quizzes, puzzles, scholarships, competition are a part of modern day learning. These activities help students to stay motivated and give their best performance. Tutors are using various incentive based learning schemes to get better responses from students. Like for example if you score x in this exam, you will get a game-pad. Like this, games and winners just like reality shows are being set up to bring even the laziest students on track, because who doesn’t like to win awards and applauses?
- Innovation
Innovative ideas of teaching along with feature rich softwares will drive the online education market in 2021 and onwards. SEARCHTEACHERS already has apps that are allowing tutors to upload demo videos, maintain chat history, payment through online mode and several other user friendly approaches. With time more audio visual contents need to come up that will make learning more engaging.