Edtech firms fill gaps amid big learning loss at schools, colleges

Beyond the news around funding and firms turning unicorns, what the edtech sector got was acceptance. They got mainstreamed and became part of the core education sector that ranges from teaching-learning to assessment, from tutoring to upskilling, from offering learning management systems to carrying out remote proctoring, catering to millions of learners from the primary to tertiary levels in the process.

While schools in the metros took to online education as an alternative, students from small towns suffered due to poor infrastructure and lack of access to resources. While investment in the edtech sector grew multi-fold during the pandemic, the focus was mainly on supplemental education, he said. The long delay in school reopening added to students' challenges.

The World Bank recently highlighted the massive learning loss in low- and middle-income countries. It stressed that the learning loss due to prolonged closure of schools, "will have lasting impacts on future earnings, poverty alleviation, and reducing inequality. According to latest estimates, this generation of students now risks losing $17 trillion in lifetime earnings."

Even as edtech boomed, however, the Union education ministry cautioned the student community to be on guard amid growing chatter of poor delivery despite lofty promises.

"Do not blindly trust the advertisements of the edtech companies. Do not sign up for any loans of which you are not aware. Do not install any mobile edtech application without verifying the authenticity," said a recent advisory from the government.