This year will bring faster technology adoption in the Indian education sector, says Ashish Dixit

Bring up education systems around the world in a conversation and it’ll be hard not to mention India. With over 250 million school-going children, our nation has one of the largest education systems across the globe. The pandemic harshly reminded us how a country like ours needs a hybrid situation for students where they can learn offline and online.

Having faced limited acceptance before, Ed Tech start-ups found their moment in the sun post-COVID-19. In the last five years, this industry has gained an investment of around $four billion and is projected to expand to $30 billion in the next 10 years.

Educational institutes were pushed to adopt remote teaching methods, meanwhile, Ed Tech start-ups did not only have the necessary tools but also the expertise that helped alleviate the risk that our traditional education institutes faced. Digital learning has opened up the doors for anyone who has a smartphone with an internet connection to learn, re-skill, and up-skill anytime, anywhere.

The most powerful thing to come out of Ed Tech start-ups is the choice that learners get to customise their study material to their requirements, and the chance for teachers and institutes to become entrepreneurs.

Several Ed Tech trends are affecting the way education is transforming. For one, virtual classrooms are something we can expect more of and get used to.

Educational institutions all over India are catching up on the technological comfort of operating digitally. After the first lockdown, a lot of them learned and are learning to take their administrative and operational functions online. Whether it’s an annual calendar, attendance, tests, assignments, or fee transactions, it all became easier to manage and keep track of on digital platforms.

Games and simulations are being picked up as educational tools to make learning an immersive and fun experience. Blockchain technology makes sure that the applications that are used for record-keeping, transactions, et al are transparent and secure.

A lot of work is going into making Augmented Reality (AR), Virtual Reality (VR), and Extended Reality (XR) cost-effective and reliable to make online learning rather an immersive experience. When the time comes for it to become more of a common practise in India, it will definitely revolutionise the educational structure everywhere.

As the world moves beyond the regular curriculum and aspires more for skill development than just a degree, we can expect quicker tech adoption in the educational landscape of 2022. Investment in CRM (customer relationship management) and LMS (learning management system) is on the rise. Where CRM is beneficial for managing the enrollment processes, LMS helps in the administration, documentation, tracking, reporting, and delivery of courses.

The AR market is predicted to exceed $5.3 billion by 2023 in the education sector. So, we can expect this technology to be used a lot more and develop further in 2022. AR has a better chance of being adopted in 2022 than VR because the latter requires a separate headgear, and the former is more compatible with smartphones.

Another popular method being used to make digital learning engaging is ‘gamification’ which refers to the use of elements and principles of a game in a non-game context. What this does is make learning hard things fun for learners. It helps them increase their level of engagement. Elements like point scoring, peer competition, teamwork, progress indicators, player control, could be seen being integrated a lot more in the coming year.

We can all agree that last two years were milestone years for Ed Tech, but 2022 will be the year when things take a definitive shape for digital learning as more educational institutions get on the same page.

(The author is the founding chairman of MyTutorHub.)