Aashay Mishra is the Co-founder and COO of PrepInsta, one of the fastest-growing placement enhancement skill companies in India. His responsibility is to take care of the operations, content management, as well as production of the company. Aashay Mishra is an EEE graduate from VIT Vellore, which is constantly ranked among the best Universities in India. Aashay started his career working as an Adobe experience manager with Publicis Sapient, which is a digital consulting company based out of Bengaluru. In this company, he helped in building products for McDonald’s and Renault. For McDonald’s, he helped in building an online food ordering system for US-based users and for Renault he worked in Geo-location tracking for Europe based users.
The education system of India is dynamic, which caters to the academic requirements of 260 million students enrolled in more than 1.5 million schools; 27.5 million undergraduate and 4 million postgraduate students studying in 42000 plus colleges. As India’s population is growing at an alarming rate, it is exerting tremendous pressure on the resources which are not adequate to deliver the quality education a student deserves. Also on the global education index, India’s current rank of 112 out of 188 countries is a cause of worry.
However lately a lot of Ed-Tech platforms are gearing up to tackle the education crisis and deliver what is needed with the help of advanced technology. With new tools and methods, educational OTTs have empowered both teachers as well as students. It has redefined the overall education sector enabling it to step out of the traditional model of four-wall classroom.
The serious outbreak of Covid-19 which enforced the closure of all the schools, institutes, and colleges across India, only served as a catalyst for further adoption of E-learning approaches. During the pandemic, online learning was seen as a solution but it’s fascinating to see how virtual classroom is being accepted as a norm now and not an alternative to the emergency lockdowns.
As OTT platforms are enabled by Internet technology, India’s ever-expanding internet users provide a perfect ground for Ed-tech platforms to operate. In the next five years, the number of active Internet users in India is expected to increase by 45% and reach 900 million by 2025. The market for online education is indicated to be USD 18 billion by 2022. Here are some of the ways how OTT platforms are helping and shaping the education sector of India
Accessibility and Affordability:
In India, more than 70 percent of the population who lives in rural areas have to face many barriers which directly impact the country’s literacy rate. As OTT education doesn’t depend on the physicality of classroom, one of its most important advantages is that users can get access to quality-driven education from anywhere at any time. Learning through an OTT platform, a student can visit past material, pause the lecture, and make easy notes simultaneously. Education OTTs also help build memory retention and interactivity as students explore and retain information more practically.
Many Education OTTs offer courses at affordable rates in comparison to what is charged by many private schools. Their vision is not only to impart education but also, to make it affordable and empower the students from lower and middle-class backgrounds. Nearly 85 percent population in India earns below 8 lakhs per year and the mission of many OTT platforms is to make education inclusive and not a matter of privilege.
Online Aids and Quick evaluation
The rise of digital resources is making education more convenient and interactive with the help of improved versions of tools. Online teaching tools offer significant benefits such as recording the classes, giving presentations, sharing voice and text messages, providing online attendance and assignments, providing feedback to students, and so on. Students thrive with these graphic organizers and visual mind mapping tools.
With the help of these educational tools, students don’t only learn new concepts but it also allows teachers to take quick assessment tests which otherwise would take days in a normal classroom setting. These tools are easy to use and also lessen the mundane administrative burden. Meaningful use of tools provides substantial benefits to students, parents, and teachers at the same time by improving communication, greater accountability, better student compliance, and greater objective in the evaluation
Gamification of Education
Innovative technology is shaping not just the future of education but also the concept of education in itself. Many Education OTT platforms are engaging in the concept of gamification of education which is basically the usage of key gaming principles and application-oriented learning, which enhances the learner’s engagement levels. Here the main target students are elementary and primary kids, to train the process of learning by applying games, mechanics of fun, competition, collaboration, and rewards. Research has proven that the gamification of education makes the process of learning more interesting and also addresses the issue of high dropouts in online learning.
Placement
The end goal of education is not just to impart skills and prepare students for the real world but it should also be to enable students to avail jobs after the completion of the course. As COVID-19 spread, many companies had put a hold on their placement process, leaving any students in limbo. Many Ed-Tech platforms operating in the country understand the unemployed situation and offer the aspirants Pay after Placement. To widen the scope of job opportunities, these OTT platforms offer upskilling courses like Data Science, technology, Management and Law, Computing, Cyber Security, Digital Marketing, Project Management, Full Stack Web Development, Placement Preparation Course, and many others.
Education OTTs are changing the face of education by improving the standard of learning and preparing students better for a knowledge-driven society. Online Learning is definitely here to stay as millions of students are turning to Education OTT for valid reasons.