By Simran Kaur
Sometime in the second week of March, state governments across the country began shutting down schools and colleges temporarily as a measure to contain the spread of the novel coronavirus. It’s close to a month and there is no certainty when they will reopen. This is a crucial time for the education sector board examinations, nursery school admissions, entrance tests of various universities and competitive examinations, among others, are all held during this period. As the days pass by with no immediate solution to stop the outbreak of Covid-19, school and university closures will not only have a short-term impact on the continuity of learning for more than 285 million young learners in India but also engender far reaching economic and societal consequences.
The structure of schooling and learning, including teaching and assessment methodologies, was the first to be affected by these closures. Only a handful of private schools could adopt online teaching methods. Their low-income private and government school counterparts, on the other hand, have completely shut down for not having access to e-learning solutions. The students, in addition to the missed opportunities for learning, no longer have access to healthy meals during this time and are subject to economic and social stress.
According to a latest report, the Indian e-learning market size was USD247 million, comprising 1.6 million users in 2016. It is expected witness an 8X growth to reach USD1.96 billion and the current user base will grow at 44 percent CAGR to 9.6 million users by 2021.
In fact, India’s e-learning market is the second largest after the US which is forecasted to grow by 15.64 percent and exceed $48 billion by 2020. Online education cost low , there has been a 175 % rise in the average annual private expenditure for general education (primary level to post graduation and above) between 2008 and 2014. During the same period, the annual cost of professional and technical education has increased by 96%. Parents spend Rs36,000 on secondary education in government school for six years, and Rs3,96,000 in private schools. If the kids are studying in boarding, the cost is close to Rs 18 lakhs. The graduation and post graduation degrees in engineering, medicine, science and commerce are unusually expensive. The aim of the government is to raise its current gross enrolment ratio to 30% by 2020. India will have the world’s largest tertiary-age population and second largest graduate talent pipeline globally by the end of 2020. However, the existing educational infrastructure is not equipped to meet the additional capacity. The e-learning can supplement the conventional model, and bridge the gap to a considerable extent.
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