The exploded adoption of smartphone, tablets and fast-internet, followed by the pandemic resulted in the sudden rise in the number of edtech startups in India. The sector’s unprecedented growth can be understood from the fact that over Rs. 3,500 crore was spent on the learning environment that includes teachers, content, and faculty by the Indian edtech companies.
The findings are part of the survey conducted by an India Edtech Consortium (IEC), which is a self-regulatory body for this industry.
The report has surfaced at a time when education startups are struggling to keep their growth intact as offline classes are fast gaining momentum as the world is coming out from the grip of the pandemic. The sector, which was booming with investors pouring money during the pandemic, is now experiencing a funding drought as investors have been sceptical about the future potential sensing the parents’ behaviours and preferences in the post-pandemic era.
The Internet and Mobile Association of India (IAMAI), a regulatory body, shared a statement on October 10 that it had conducted the survey to evaluate the quality of education provided by edtech companies in India. This independent regulatory body includes Indian edtech startups such as upGrad, Careers360, Classplus and Doubtnut.
Few of the main highlights of the report are:
- Around 86 percent of teachers believe the rise of Edtech companies has increased job opportunities.
- 82 percent participants believe technology has improved their teaching abilities.
- 62 percent of teachers felt that they had a better work-life balance between work and life after the pandemic.
- 74 percent of respondents found flexibility as the major benefit and stated that they work more flexible hours with edtech startups.
- On the flip side, around 10 percent said that startups have disrupted their work-life balance is a bid to attain rapid growth rate.
“Teaching as a profession has taken a backseat which, of course, is an alarming situation. Therefore, IEC reached out to such practitioners to assess how well-placed are they in their profession… These insights from the industry are likely to also accelerate the adoption of teaching as a sought-after career option,” said IEC chair Mayank Kumar. He is also managing director and co-founder of edtech unicorn upGrad.
The IEC was setup by IAMAI on January. The self-regulated body has many popular edtech unicorns includes Harappa, Times Edutech & Events Limited, Scaler, Simplilearn, Toppr, Unacademy, UNext Learning, Vedantu and WhiteHat Jr. in their members list.
The phenomial rise of edtech startups in India, specially during the lockdown, attracted the eyeballs of investors worldwide. Being one of the biggest markets, in terms if student numbers, investor didn’t shy away pouring money at instance valuation in many startups. The skyrocketing valuation of Byjus during the pandemic is a real testimony to the fact. The startup which was valued $10 billion in May 2022, is now valued over $22 billion. The scenario with many other edtech startups in India is no different either.
There are over 4,450 edtech startups in India that are assisting over 300 million school students. However, the numbers have either stagnated or have started declining since the beginning of 2022.
