The Online Education Market – Breaking New Barriers to Ensure Universal Education

The expanding reach of the internet and the profusion of consumer electronics which are collectively responsible for the propagation of online education services are, among others instrumental to the online education market growth around the world. Followed by the growing penchant for acquiring certified skills, the growing number of blended learning programs which are being made available by a variety of institution that is inclusive of but not limited to language learning institutes, computer coding academies and universities that are providing degrees and diplomas completely over the world wide web. The aforesaid is being reinforced by the widening of career aspirations which nowadays constitute gaining of skills which earlier have never been traditionally a part of syllabi of schools and colleges, among others. Also, the high investments in technological developments that are increasingly geared towards the facilitation of transmission of larger volumes of data, greater internet bandwidth, and hardware which consumes less amount of power are collectively responsible for propelling the online education market world. Additionally, the rural electrifications in certain emerging economies are also increasing the availability of the internet in remote areas which are allowing a variety of players which range from the government as well as private players to extend services that are free and at the same time comparatively more affordable.

 

Conscientious government investments are expected to propel the online education market during the forecast period

For instance, the government of India during the past few years has capitalized on the capabilities of the ICT industry to bring about a host of services and facilities, under the auspices of NMEICT (National Mission on Education through Information and Communication Technology) to promote digital learning. The latter is a program that is reportedly administered by the Department of Higher Education, Ministry of Human Resource Development to make the content of the best quality accessible to aspirants across the nation for free. For instance, an integrated platform that is intended for offering online courses and encompassing curriculums ranging from standard 9 to post-graduation level is called ‘Study Webs of Active Learning for Young Aspiring Minds or SWAYAM wherein as of July 20192769 MOOCs (Massive Open Online Courses) have been offered. The programs have also registered an enrolment of 1.02 crore students in various courses. This platform reportedly caters to the other stakeholders who aren’t students for their lifelong learning aspirations. The MOOCs are developed by NCERT (National Council of Educational Research and Training) which covers 12 subject areas that comprise sociology, psychology, political science, physics, mathematics, history, geography, economic, chemistry, business studies, biology, and accountancy, for classes IX-XII.

Furthermore, at the launch of India’s 2020-21 the Honorable Finance minister of the government of India had reportedly reaffirmed the need for making India’s youth more employable through better education. In line with the aforesaid and to transform India's education system by 2040 The National Education Policy 2020 (NEP 2020) which was reportedly approved by the Union Cabinet of India during July 2020 replacing the previous National Policy on Education, 1986 outlines underscores the importance of the role online learning. The policy is also reported to encourage institutions based in India not only to develop their respective online programs but also to acknowledge and award credit for online programs offered by foreign institutions.

As far as Austria is concerned Moodle and LMS (Learning Management Systems are being used as well as loud solutions from companies such as Microsoft and Google. Regional initiatives like that adopted by The City of Vienna that constitutes the extending of free “Support 2.0” tutoring initiative intended for 10-14 years which are offered online. This initiative reportedly provides additional support in the subjects of Mathematics, German, and English for lower secondary schools. With regards to Belize as of March 2020, all schools were ceased to function as per government announcements.  Among others, it was reported that e-Testing modality (online and offline) would be employed to minimize processing time needed for examination administration and concomitantly facilitate quick turn-around time for marking and release of examination results. Shifting the focus to the orient, The Ministry of Education (MoE) of Bhutan has reportedly in March 2020 launched the Bhutan e-Learning program?in. Enabling students from PreK-12 to access lessons on YouTube, among others. Certain schools have been reported to use online tools such as Google classrooms and G Suite so that students can continue to receive education from home. Due to the rising adoption of Google classrooms, there was a need for minimizing the data charges.

A variety of telecommunication operators like Bhutan Telecom (BT) and TashiCel have been reported to actively work with the government to provide additional data for students. Also, the Ministry of Information and Communications has been reported to be working with the telecom service providers and education ministry to provide access to data for eLearning for students across the country. Further, it was reported that The Druk Holding and Investments (DHI) is providing free data for people in quarantine. Applications such as WeChat or WhatsApp are also being used by teachers to assign students with specific chapters to read and a set of questions to respond to.  The aforesaid is also a snapshot of how the various national governments are embracing EdTech to cope with the closure of schools and learning institutions due to COVID 19 and prevent further loss of human capital and reduced economic opportunities in the long term.

A variety of investments by a myriad of market players reaffirms the upward trajectory of the online education market trend during the immediate future.

October 2020 – Product Launch

Beijing-based ByteDance had reportedly announced the launch of a standalone EdTech brand Dali for the Chinese market, which is known to integrate an artificial intelligence-based camera that can help parents tutor their kids., making the company reportedly a late entrant in China’s online education market.

June 2020 – Program Launch

Online learning startup Byju’s had reportedly launched an online private tuition class which was marketed to make scheduled online classes from leading teachers accessible to student and the freedom to choose from weekday and weekend batches.