The beginning of 2020 turned out to be quite unusual. The global lockdown, caused by the COVID-19, disrupted every aspect of our lives. Almost every industry is experiencing difficulties. Businesses and institutions from the public sector are looking for alternative solutions to continue their operations. Now more than ever before everyone’s attention is attracted by online technologies and remote opportunities. Even sectors that have been reluctant to change and slow in adopting new solutions are quickly shifting.
Education is a great example. According to UNESCO, the temporary closure of educational organizations across the globe is affecting more than 90% of the students in the world. Institutions are starting to implement new methods of teaching and adapting to the situation.
The interest towards EdTech businesses has significantly increased and most probably will continue to do so in the near future. According to Holon IQ in the first quarter of 2020 alone, the EdTech sector has attracted $3 billion of venture capital funding. This is almost 10% of the total amount accumulated during the whole previous decade. As a result, many businesses in the sector are growing their operations, developing new solutions and improving their offerings. In the context of global uncertainty and hiring freezes in many companies, top EdTech organizations such as EdX, Coursera, Udemy, Teachers Pay Teachers, Duolingo and Guild Education continue recruiting.
It seems that the further expansion of the tech sector and its greater integration with the traditional academic institutions are inevitable. Here are two factors that would probably have a huge impact and be the main drivers for the transformation of many educational systems across the world.
- Online teaching and learning
The idea of virtual education is not new. Although until now it was much better developed in the private sector with platforms such as Coursera and Udemy that are focusing on self-learning and development, it also had its foundations in traditional education with many schools and universities trying to extend their in-class activities with online exercises and additional materials.
But now educational institutions are facing great challenges as not being able to continue with the established forms of teaching in the classrooms. They are looking for alternative methods to continue their activities remotely. Recording and uploading lessons on video streaming platforms, presenting lectures live through video conferencing tools are just a few of the new practices they are implementing.
It is hard to imagine that continuous remote education won’t lead to any changes after the end of the global health crisis. We will most probably see a rise in the collaboration between traditional educational organizations and digital platforms for knowledge sharing, researched-based learning and online evaluation.
- Penetration of the emerging technologies in the learning process
As we mentioned education is one of the sectors that are traditionally quite hesitant when it comes to the adoption of new technologies and it usually takes time for a given innovation to be properly integrated. But the current global situation surely has created more favourable conditions for the forward-thinking companies that were continuously looking for ways to integrate cutting-edge technologies such as AI, AR, robotics and even blockchain in order to enhance the learning process. Holon IQ predicts that by 2025 these advanced technologies will be heavily integrated into core education delivery and learning processes. It forecasts that expenditures for AR/VR technologies in the sector will reach $12,6 billion, those for AI – $6,1B and robotics and blockchain - $3,1B and $0.6B respectively. These numbers are an indication that emerging technologies will be finding broader application in all levels of education and significantly transforming teaching and learning practices.
As a conclusion, we may expect that the current emergency situation would lead to a permanent shift in education systems across the world and the way students consume new knowledge and interact with their teachers and peers. Hopefully, this would make education more accessible and able to reflect the needs of the learning population in modern society.
Is your EdTech company experiencing the increasing demand in the sector? Do you need more development resources to grow and improve your product or service? Building a remote dedicated team may be one of the solutions. Organizations such as IMD Business School have already taken advantage of the distributed dev teams to tackle the growth challenges they were facing.
If you are also looking for efficient ways to expand your capacity, do not hesitate to contact us.