Blockchain solutions boost EdTech

Education is among the most rapidly growing segments in the global economy. Currently valued at $70 billion, it is forecasted to at least triple by 2027.

New online and offline schools pop up almost daily, and established players constantly expand the range of offered services.

Still, the education market faces two major issues. How can you increase the proportion of students who complete courses they’ve signed up for? How can you motivate a student to pay for education?

These two metrics — the course completion ratio and the proportion of paying students — are key when it comes to optimizing education projects’ business models.

Schools lose potential revenues as students don’t complete courses and don’t sign up for follow-ups, while potential paying students don’t have sufficient motivations for taking paid courses.

One possible way to resolve these issues involves tech products created on the Waves blockchain.

Battle for paying customers

Just about all players in the education sector have been able to create a “marketing package,” attractively presenting the essence of their courses, but they still lack credibility in the eyes of potential students who care about a course’s reputation and the quality of skills taught.

Therefore, many education institutions turn to agencies certifying teachers and schools, such as HiSTES.de. HiSTES’ services are in demand because they improve schools’ reputation and students begin to see them as sources of exclusive information from established professionals and, therefore, to buy courses more often.

How does blockchain come into the picture? As founder of Certificado, I’ve spoken with HiSTES, and they agreed that the issuance of licenses that could be checked on the blockchain would foster trust and, consequently, improve the paying student conversion ratio: potential students prefer to buy courses from schools certified by independent bodies, and the ability to check a license’s authenticity on the blockchain is vital.

In addition, as the Certificado launch showed, many students are eager to have their own course completion certificate. One school offered a higher price option for a course with an individual blockchain certificate.

As a result, 10% more went for this option. A certificate remains a major motivation tool, stimulating students who have paid for it to complete the course.

For more details on education certificates, read this article by me.

All the way

According to statistics, on average, less than one half of students who sign up for a course complete it. This is a problem for schools as dropouts will have negative impressions of the course, they won’t join graduates’ loyal community, won’t leave positive feedback or recommend the course to friends.

Students often drop out because of insufficient motivation. And teachers’ ability to motivate students to complete their course is crucial.

Vitaly Smirnov, who runs a self-improvement course, boasts excellent performance for the soft skills segment: over 90% of his students complete the course.

Vitaly says that establishing horizontal ties in student groups is a key motivation factor. He builds communication in such a way that students meet and inspire each other. For instance, students help each other with homework, and if someone hasn’t submitted their homework by the deadline, access to the next lesson remains closed for all students in a group. As a result, students are interested and motivated in supporting and helping each other.

The creation of student communities is largely Vitaly’s personal achievement. To replicate it, you need his charisma and other individual qualities. But there is a tool acting as building blocks and motivation catalyst for student communities — Billy, a team motivation instrument, created by my colleague Inal Kardanov.

Billy is a tool currently used by companies for improving corporate climate: it facilitates team members’ exchange of Thank You tokens as appreciation of help. Inal described the tool’s mechanic in detail in this article. Importantly, in several months, Billy really helped to establish horizontal communication in customer companies, as well as to motivate their employees.

The same principle can be applied to student communities. Did someone help you with homework? Reward them with a Thank You token. Did someone watch a webinar and replied to assignment questions first? The school can send them Thank You tokens that could be later converted into discounts on new courses.

This gamification approach can become a key element in student motivation, enabling near-automatic creation student communities for a customer that offers online courses.

Blockchain future

Blockchain technology is unique in transparency and reliability of user data storage, which facilitates the creation of new powerful products with unique functionality. Skill verification, immutable licenses and student motivation through tokenization can be implemented on the blockchain and have a positive impact on the quality of education products.

As the edtech market is set to continue growing over the next few years, thinking about making your own IT solution on the blockchain for this industry makes a lot of sense. What if you come up with a tool that can make education more affordable, useful and valuable?

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