School reopening may hamper growth of edtech sector: Experts

The COVID-19 pandemic led to an exponential growth of the edtech sector and huge numbers of recruitment but experts believe that with the reopening of schools, this upward trajectory is likely to consolidate.

The pandemic has drastically changed teaching and learning and funding for ed-tech has remained bullish leading to the adoption of advanced technology, growth in both revenue as well as hiring, CIEL HR Services Director and CEO Aditya Mishra said.

“We estimate that there are more than 10,000 active openings across levels and permanent roles in the industry. Apart from these, there are at least 50,000 temporary job openings in the edtech sector,” Mishra said.

The intensity of action in terms of recruitments, investments and new enrolments is expected to come down a bit as the brick-and-mortar model begins to function normally, he said.

“The number of new start-ups in the space will eventually come down. Though the growth rates will decline, the momentum will continue because numerous schools and students are yet to be covered by edtech.

"The National Education Policy (NEP) will continue to work as a facilitator for the growth of the sector. In the years ahead, we will see consolidation in the industry that will give rise to a few major players for each segment within edtech," he said.

TeamLease Edtech CEO and founder Shantanu Rooj said the Indian edtech sector has attracted huge capital investments and this will continue for the next few years.

Education technology has not only helped maintain continuity for institutions but has also helped them become more efficient and better governed, he noted.

“Most institutions agree that it would be difficult to balance cost, quality and scale without the use of technology,” he added.

Rooj also said technology in education has helped create new products, improve customer satisfaction, brought in personalisation in learning and improved metrics of assessments.

“This is in line with the increased number of users, higher engagement learning and assessments and increasing personalised learning requirements,” Rooj added.

Rooj said the ed-tech space in India has witnessed a steady upturn since 2013 with investment and funding increasing 5x times between 2013 and 2016.

However, the COVID-19 pandemic in 2020 proved to be the watershed moment for the edtech industry as a whole, specifically online learning has witnessed a significant rise among both students and professionals, he said.

"The demand from industry and institutions for ed-tech and related services has grown by about 140 per cent over the past 14 months. Education technology has become mainstream now not only does it support classroom education but has helped create new life forms of education that can help both traditional and employed learners," he said.

Rooj added that edtech has emerged as a growth powerhouse, supporting the economy through investments and new jobs.

“Hiring in the edtech sector has grown to 50-60 per cent compared to pre-COVID-19 times. The various roles that have emerged over the past couple of years would not have existed in the years before. Student counsellors, online tutors, virtual lab instructors, online assessment managers, remote proctors, student engagement executives, student career counsellors, and course managers, etc, are new roles that edtech has created,” Rooj said.

Genius Consultants CMD R.P. Yadav said edtech has become a part and parcel of education, however, there is a chance that growth might fall a little bit after the schools open.

But the growth will continue to increase by around 40-50% for the next two to three years as there is still a huge gap between demand and supply, he stated.

The sector is growing at a fast pace aided by the restrictions to curb the spread of the pandemic as it is economical, practical and available to use at one's home at their convenience.

“Edtech witnessed larger demand in the backroom, especially for software developers, support function, teacher, content writer, marketing professionals. The experience bracket in demand is three to five years and six to 10 years,” Yadav said.

Hiring in the sector is also being done for roles such as content creators, academicians (faculty and trainers), marketing, product development, app developers, technical architects, program managers, software engineers, cloud infrastructure and security specialists, he stated.

Cities such as Bengaluru, Pune, Mumbai, Hyderabad, Delhi and NCR are witnessing higher hiring trends in the sector.