Edtech is a concept that gained inordinate popularity in recent times due to the lockdown imposed by the coronavirus. Edtech as the name suggests is the combination of education and technology. While it existed way before 2020, the level by which it has grown in these few years is enormous. According to Forbes India, between January 2021 and September 2021 the edtech market made $3.35 billion which is 3 times the value it generated in 2019 and 2020, do mind this was only within India. While the surge did make sense as everyone was forced to move into that platform, the edtech industry didn't continue being prominent.
(Picture Courtesy: Learning Without Tears)
Before we dive into why edtech leapt down, we must first understand what is edtech and the types of edtech. Edtech, or education technology, is the combination of IT tools and educational practices aimed at facilitating and enhancing learning. Now, edtech can be categorized into 3 different types:-
The first type includes technology that helps individual students, by that I mean it follows a B2C consumer market where services are offered directly to the customers. These kinds of services allow people to not exactly seek education but rather embellish the process of learning. An example of this kind of edtech would be Grammarly or Wordtune which allows you to correct grammatical mistakes.
The second type acts like an institution or intermediary platform that helps individual instructors and students connect and learn. While these kinds of establishments don't create educational content themselves, they have total control of the content put out by the personnel that are connected with them. Examples of these would be companies such as Udemy which provides online courses made by teachers or professionals associated with them.
Among other things, the most commonly used technology during the time of lockdown - are platforms that work with already existing institutions or companies. These kinds of services involve the institution going into contact with the service providers and paying them for access. These kinds of technologies customarily include databases for the students, examination platforms, whiteboard access, a live classroom environment, homework assistors and so on. Examples of these kinds of companies would be Managebac a company that closely works with IB and IGCSE schools work with including my school during the lockdown.
While these platforms flourished during the lockdown, they fell to their faces in 2022. According to Inc42, there has been a 38% decrease in the funding of edtech startups and companies in 2022. This is because the majority of edtech investors believe that their money is going down the drain with the edtech companies. All of this brings us to the main question - What is the reason behind this?
The answer is very simple - People got agitated. Yes, that is the case! I came by this solution by researching within my peer groups and family and the results coordinated well with the results and made a lot of sense.
People were detained in their houses with nowhere to go and tired of seeing a screen 24/7. Kids were missing their physical schools and wanted to meet their friends physically and not through a virtual screen. One fond memory that I have during the lockdown is that I remember during our brief for the IGCSE final exams the coordinator told us via zoom that she wanted to extend her hands through the monitor and give us a handshake and wish us all the best as we prepared for the exams. While that was a happy memory the fact that she couldn't do it was a bitter feeling we all had.
Hence, as soon as people could go to their schools and go their universities they went and didn't want anything to do with the extensive institution present behind their screens. Moreover, the impact of this fall was severely boosted since a colossal amount of money was pumped into the edtech market a year before. Because of the money ingested by the market, the height of the crash increased making many people incapable of getting up again.
So, what does this mean for edtech - was it useless all along? I believe it was the best educational breakthrough ever made, no matter what conditions were attached. Even the definition of edtech says that it enhances education. Edtech allows people to learn from anywhere at any time - this is necessary where people cannot migrate or say for example, in places like Afghanistan - we all know the situation there. Moreover, it allows a more comprehensive and flexible method of education. While this does not mean we should completely shift to edtech, I believe both the edtech method and the traditional way of education should find a way to co-exist.
To conclude I believe that the damage made to the edtech corporations would only be temporary and they will be back and better once everyone gets acclimatized to the new normal. This was my perspective on this issue based on the evidence I collected first handedly and from the internet. Anyways I hope that this has helped expand your knowledge on the topic of edtech as it certainly has updated mine and helped you reconsider edtech.
Thank you for reading and I will soon be releasing more of my thoughts on my different fields of interest with the next one! Have a good day!
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