How edtech startups are contributing to a changing trend in education in India

Wednesday September 09, 2015 , 6 min Read

Rajesh Shoukeen, a class XII student and an IIT aspirant from a small district in Haryana, feels closer to his dream. Unavailability of quality education facility is not an issue for him anymore. Thanks to technology! He is taking online classes with one of the reputed coaching institutes in the country.

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Communication evolution, interactive textbooks, expanding audience, disappearance of the chalk board, rise of web-based research, and gamification -- technology has changed our traditional education system in more ways than one.

“Mobile phones have played the most vital role in revolutionizing the education system as never before. With the introduction of smartphones, the device has become more engaging. Now educators are using the device as an important educating tool,” says Maneesh Sharma, Chief Revenue Officer, WizIQ. Founded in 2007, WizIQ is a cloud-based education platform. Over 400,000 educators have leveraged WizIQ to deliver learning services to over four million learners across 200 countries.

Aakash Institute, which offers coaching classes for medical and engineering preparation, is using WizIQ’s platform for Aakash LIVE and catering to more than 2500 students via virtual classes.

Maneesh adds that content is being repurposed for the mobile, concept of micro learning courses is coming up on the mobile platform and the device is also being used for quick assessment tests and other education related purposes.

Analytics in this segment is another contribution of evolution of technology. It has also led to the discovery and communication of meaningful patterns in data. “Using analytics, teachers can easily asses the performance of students. It has also equipped the institute to analyze the performance of teachers in the class,” says Maneesh.

Real-time book updates, online tutoring, edutainment and online test preparation are some of the methods through which education startups are trying to cater to a larger audience. Using technology they have been able to reach tier II and tier III cities. And with innovations, they are offering HD quality videos at 100kbps speed, ensuring people in places with lower Internet bandwidth are not denied the chance to learn from the best teachers in the country.

Vedantu, Simplilearn, Toppr, Iprof, Meritnation, Talentedge and embibe.com among others are some of the names in the segment which have been using aforementioned education methods and technologies to reach a wider audience. In the past two years, these platforms have shown enormous growth and have been able to draw the interest of investors too.

Bengaluru-based Vedantu provides live online tutoring sessions for students from grade 6 to 12. Offerings range from monthly tuitions, IIT Foundation to preparation for exams like NTSE, PSA, KVPY, IMO & JEE Mains. It uses technology to bring together teachers and students to enable live learning between them. Vedantu’s focus is on live online 1-to-1 tutoring between a teacher and a student. During May this year, it raised $5 million from Accel Partners and Tiger Global Management.

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Simplilearn is a Bangalore based company that deals with online education and training for professional certificate courses. The company possesses study centers across the globe and offers 200 certificate courses that include Project Management, IT Services Management, IT Security Management, Quality Management, Financial Management and Technology Certification. In April this year, it raised $15 million in its third round of funding led by Mayfield along with Kalaari Capital and Helion Venture Partners.

Mumbai-based online test prep startup, Toppr.com helps students prepare for competitive exams and other Olympiads and scholarship exams. The content, developed by Toppr itself, comprises a bank of over 45,000 questions and an algorithm that decides what questions the student should solve at any given time. This year, it closed a funding round of Rs 65 crores led by Fidelity Growth Partners India, and existing investors, SAIF Partners and Helion Ventures. The company raised Series A round of Rs 12 crores in 2014.

However, these developments in the edtech segment is very new. So, what was holding the growth for the last two decades?

Harish Iyer, Co-founder and CEO, Flinnt.com, a learning management system that aims to revolutionize education by increasing engagement between teachers and pupils, replies, “The education sector is deeply fragmented. The demand and needs of education boards are different. It stands similar in case of students as each student has a different need in education field. Owing to lack of homogeneity in demand, the segment, in dearth of ample products, couldn’t fulfill the demand of all the sections. Lack of traction was also the reason for the slow growth.”

Nevertheless, the phenomenon is changing. According to an estimate, the education market of India is worth USD 100 billion annually, 60 per cent of which is accounted for by the K-12 sector. Besides, innovation and technology have opened a pass for education startups to penetrate into the market.

Harish adds that now with a steep growth in the segment, the edtech startups have been able to meet the demand of the deeply fragmented market. Though investment is at nascent stage yet it has started showing interest in the sector.

According to Harish, the B2C segment is developing, however, B2B segment has witnessed higher growth and has a high growth potential.

Talking on the growth, Shashank Pandey, Co-founder, Convegenius, says, “The future will depend on personalization of the product. Gamification is another method that will be adopted by education segment. The Internet penetration will spread the reach of edtech segments, taking it inside the country.”

Launched in January 2014, Convegenius is an extension to such development in the edutainment sector, and is working to create ecosystems that are designed to educate children by bringing in elements of fun, entertainment, and associated rewards, simultaneously.