Covid 19 and its variants have ensured that the education sector remains in crisis. With learning loss, unavailability of technology, schools shutting down, many students have been forced to discontinue education. While others are still running the show, several trends during the past year have shown that this sector has metamorphosed and is still changing. Industry leaders are, however, optimistic and are looking forward to a new year, with although “new normal ” and new methodologies yet a new vigour to overcome the challenges and help students shine. Let’s take a look at what Industry experts have to comment:

“As education technology has changed at a rapid pace, it has also changed how teachers relate to their students and their classrooms. With a plethora of information easily available, students today have the necessary modern tools to discover facts and knowledge on their own. This has led to an evolution where teachers act as facilitators, helping students understand how to learn, love learning, and how to uncover and understand the information they find. As a consequence, the need for trained teachers will increase in the coming years. Upskilling of teachers will not only give them the necessary edge to remain relevant skill-wise but also provide the confidence and self-esteem which helps them be more effective educators.”- Surabhi Goel, CEO, Aditya Birla Education Academy

“The National Education Policy (NEP) launch last year was a milestone in Indian education. However, there is no state-level or board-level implementation of NEP guidelines yet. Another major miss of this year was the wide-scale shutdown of budget schools as many parents lost their jobs due to covid and hence were unable to pay the school fees and were forced to send their kids back to government schools. For 2022, the EdTech funding may slow down as valuations are extremely high & dominant market players have been identified in each education sub-segment. This is similar to funding trends in other tech sectors where the largest 2-3 players take up most funding. The pandemic changed our outlook towards education. Everything went online, yet not everyone could benefit from it. The states might start accepting hybrid learning & tech-oriented education models in core schools/colleges to overcome this challenge.” – Dr Akhil Shahani, Managing Director, Thadomal Shahani Centre for Management, Shahani Group and CEO, ask.Careers

“The pandemic has catalysed the role of ed-tech in democratising quality education at scale. Edtech is reimagining learning through data analytics, immersive and emerging technologies. The coming year will witness the penetration of these trends, with user experience at the heart of the learning process. Collaborations among various education and ed-tech organisations along with industry-academia partnerships will see a significant uptick to bridge the skill gap.” – Akshay Munjal, Founder and CEO, Hero Vired.

“The coming times, 2022, and beyond present many exciting opportunities for the sector that will begin to move towards consolidation. I think soon we will be hearing of slews of acquisitions/buy-outs in the space. The Bharat segment specifically, will witness increased attention by key players owing to the vast opportunity it presents in terms of the significant user base, as well as owing to the increase in adoption of frontier technologies like AR that will further disrupt and democratize the EdTech landscape. Personally, I think some very interesting times await for the EdTech sector in general, and Pariksha in particular as we prepare for explosive growth and intensified competition. Those who conflate technology with successful outcomes will be at the forefront of this brave and exciting new normal.” – Karanvir Singh, Founder and CEO, Pariksha.

“2021 was expected to be the year where the ed-tech sector would see the adoption of hybrid learning & solutions for students & related stakeholders. These hybrid models have enabled students to get access to more personalization and increased flexibility in learning; which was much needed! Given our vision to shape the career guidance landscape, we at Mindler introduced career guidance solutions that added a layer of experiential learning for our students. We also laid a lot of emphasis on empowering educators through programs that would enable schools to create a comprehensive career guidance ecosystem in their institutions. One of our biggest learnings in 2021 was that students’ learning styles are undergoing a massive change and innovations focused on student engagement and empowerment will be the way forward. Adoption of technology we have seen over the last 2 years in the ed-tech space is just the beginning and in the coming years, I expect more innovative solutions which focus on blending the use of technology to aid learning and empower students within the existing framework of schools. With the classroom environment expected to evolve in a big way, we believe career-oriented and outcome-based learning will be the emerging trend in 2022.” – Prateek Bhargava, Founder and CEO of Mindler.