Iconic Harvard professor Clay Christensen and I, over a casual breakfast at Harvard Business School 10 years ago discussed the rise of online education in America. He was narrating how a university hired him to deliver sessions for its online MBA degree. Though the university was not among the best, Clay’s interest was in their disruptive model of delivery about which he spoke on many occasions. Hiring one of the finest and acoustically elegant and expensive auditoriums in Boston and with Clay on stage, the video recording starts with his stentorian voice with scholarly majestic. The camera is programmed to frequently zoom in and out to show the ‘hired live class’ comprising cosmetically prepared models to break the monotony of Clay’s image and trained to look attentive with studious facial expressions. Welcome to the world of online education with a difference.
The growth of online education, thanks to Covid, has created tectonic policy tremors excessively shifting the focus from brick-and-mortar institutions. Revenue in the global online education market is projected to reach $166.60 billion in 2023 and with a CAGR of 9.5 per cent expected to reach $250 billion by 2027. Online university education with an estimated volume of $103.80 billion in 2023 is the largest revenue generator and most revenue (close to $80 billion) will be generated in the US. The key brands that drive online education are scattered worldwide with Chinese University MOOC and Zhihuishi controlling almost 25 percent of the global brand share. Notables like edX, Udemy, BYJU’S, Kaplan, University of Phoenix, etc. still contribute only 1-2 percent each. The Indian story is no different with online education roaring and powered by EdTechs see-sawing their operations with their own booms and busts.
In 2018, BYJU’S became a unicorn and this signalled with a big bang the arrival of India which later saw at least six EdTech unicorns. Despite an EdTech market estimate of $5 billion in India, there seems to be trouble brewing with the winds of change blowing hard. The return of brick and mortar and its preference for bits and bytes cannot be dismissed as a market correction but needs to be studied as a market arbitrator. With BYJU’S, Unacademy, Vedantu, etc. announcing major layoffs, there is also a perceptible change in the identity of EdTechs that are also entering the offline space. The acquisition of AAKASH by BYJU’S, its tuition centre, Unacademy’s experience centre and the acquisition of GATE Academy centres, etc. are all sounding the brick-and-mortar bell. This is further attenuated
by a drop in VC funding that is expected to fall by 17-20 per cent for both early and late-stage funding respectively, in addition to EdTech’s own cost-cutting canvas.
It is in this background that India’s education policymakers need to calibrate their moves. A sudden push to an allowable maximum of 40 per cent of conventional education in online mode is tantamount to spreading an untested Covidian symptom. Studies indicate falling learning outcomes of online education raising flags to halt the mindless policy support that has far-reaching irreversible consequences for the future.
A recent study (2023) by the National Bureau of Economic Research indicates that grade-driven online education delivers inferior and sub-par learning outcomes due to the absence of checks and balances available face-to-face. The study points out various online models of engagement that pierce the heart of quality bleeding with a heavy price being not only the learning outcome penalty but also distorting the art of education. This calls for a policy push backwards to understand the realities and purpose of online education as the world recovers from heavy learning losses after Covid.
IITs roaring registration for its online degree programmes and its leadership and unchartered blue-ocean space (thanks to some policy shields), the ‘glorified’ shift to online education by certain higher educational institutions to cover up their faculty inadequacies, cost-cutting strategies of EdTechs, a SaaS-based National Digital University, etc. are all combined symptoms of concern. There seems to be
a growing rush towards online education that excessively pushes post-college online life-long learning to replace on-campus lifetime learning opportunities. Quality higher education cannot afford this model and requires a middle ground to be laid down by policymakers. Will they? Only time will tell as my favourite Clay watches from his grave.
S Vaidhyasubramaniam
Vice-Chancellor, SASTRA Deemed University
vaidhya@sastra.edu