Will EdTech in India pass the pandemic test?

In 2014, Michael Truncano, a World Bank specialist on education and technology policy postulated that for EdTech to go mainstream, it needed a tipping point. An unanticipated event that would force mass adoption. He talked about the 2003 SARS epidemic as being one such event- and the same can now be applied to the coronavirus.

A pre-coronavirus study predicted that the Indian EdTech market would grow to $18 billion by 2022. And the current situation can only help this number. Now that all schools and colleges are shut, both educators and learners are turning to the vast array of digital tools available. EdTech platforms no longer have to prove their use-cases or create a demand for their products. The crisis at hand has enabled online learning tools to graduate from being ‘additional’ to ‘essential’.

And EdTech companies are making good use of the opportunity at hand. Bjyu’s, India’s largest learning platform, announced in late March that they would make all their school level subject matter free till the end of April. The company’s website traffic jumped by 36% MoM in April to 19.7mn. Their Android app saw 2 times more reviews in April (21724) compared to March (10698), an indication of higher traffic translating to higher product usage. Byjus also announced that it has seen a 60% increase in students since the announcement, and has added 13.5 million consumers in the months of March and April.

And Byjus’ rival Toppr was not to be left behind. They too, made their live and recorded video classes free for the period, and witnessed a 23% MoM increase in web traffic in April. Toppr received about 1.8X more app reviews in April compared to March. Doubtnut, an online study app focussed on mathematics, received 6.45 million visits in April over 4.3mn in March.

B2B platform ClassPlus, which enables coaching centres and their tutors to supplement teaching with online tools, has become a sought after tool for teachers and educational institutions looking for a means to jumpstart their online classes. Their monthly web traffic shot up to 270,000 in April, a 337% increase over March.

The unprecedented circumstances have also urged EdTech players to redefine their offerings to meet present needs.

For instance, Vedantu, an online K-12 tutoring company which hosts live classes by tying up with subject teachers, has now reached out to schools to get them to take regular lessons using their platform. While Vedantu’s web traffic was flat, its android app has witnessed 4X reviews in April compared to March.

Similarly, Unacademy, which offers live classes and mock tests for exam preparation, has opened its platform up to institutions for free during this period. As the co-founder, Gaurav Munjal, says “B2B is not what we do, but we’ll do what it takes to help institutions tide through this.” He also expresses his optimism for the future of online learning, saying, “Things were anyway moving online, but what would have taken two years earlier, will now take a month.” Unacademy’s monthly traffic went up by 50% in April whereas new monthly reviews on its Android app went up by 38%.

As professionals stayed at home, the professional development or upskilling segment also saw an uptick, though not as spectacular as seen in K-12 and test preparation segments. Simplilearn, which provides online certifications, saw its web traffic grow by 17% in April compared to March.

Amongst the brick-and-mortar incumbents, the story is a little different. Ones that were digitally prepared have benefitted, while others are playing catch up. In the test preparation market, for example, Aakash Institute, which already had a digital offering saw its monthly app and website visits consistently double from February (0.95 million) to March (2.2 million) and again from March to April (4.4 million). It’s competitors like Resonance and Fiitjee, meanwhile, were caught under-prepared.

EdTech does seem to be on the upswing, as is also evident by the fact that learning platforms continue to hire more people even as other industries are looking at furloughs and layoffs. Most of them, including even new entrants like Whitehat Jr, which provides online coding courses for kids, have been steadily adding to their numbers since the beginning of this year.

While the lockdown has provided a shot in the arm for the sector, will the spurt in online adoption sustain once the educational institutions open? The jury is out but this is a space to track.