After Reliance and Viacom18, Bodhi Tree Systems, a platform of James Murdoch’s Lupa Systems and Uday Shankar, has announced a $600 million (over Rs 4,500 crore) investment in a strategic partnership with ALLEN Career Institute to build India’s biggest test-prep company.
The transaction is expected to close within three months and is subject to closing conditions and requisite approvals.
A newly-formed platform between Lupa Systems Founder and CEO James Murdoch and Uday Shankar, the former president of The Walt Disney Company Asia Pacific and former Chairman of Star and Disney India, Bodhi Tree Systems is also backed by Qatar Investment Authority (QIA), the sovereign wealth fund of the State of Qatar, as an investor.
With a pan-India footprint and growing presence in the Middle East through 138 classrooms in 46 cities, ALLEN has become one of the names to reckon with in test-prep, with its presence in competitive college entrance examinations and Olympiads.
Inside the news. Bodhi Tree Systems would pick up a significant minority stake while the deal would give the Allen Career Institute capital for expansion. A major chunk of investments in edtech has gone to the test-prep space in a significant digital push during the pandemic and a new digital hybrid model of learning seems to be emerging. There have been many important moves in the segment in the recent past including a few large offline-online deals (such as the Byju’s-Aakash Educational Services deal). With the latest deal, the highly contested space will now see more firepower.
The National Education Policy (NEP), approved by the union cabinet on 29th July 2020 has special focus on digital education and remote learning.
The NEP 2020 comes at a time when the Delhi University’s plan to conduct online exams for final year students is being heard by the Delhi high court. Besides overhauling primary education, the NEP would set up National Educational Technology Forum (NETF) and a dedicated unit to set up digital edtech infrastructure.
With Covid-19 changing the way of life for students and teachers, the next few months will be all about adjusting to the reality that all education now happens online, but when it comes to examinations, the situation may not be as crystal clear. With this in mind, the Indian government has announced a forward-looking National Education Policy, which updates the 1986 policy and brings in some much-needed changes to back remote or digital learning.
The policy also seeks to overhaul edtech in public colleges and schools to increase access for disadvantaged groups, while online learning content will be available in regional languages.
It also proposes virtual labs, a National Educational Technology Forum (NETF) which should help bring up more technological interventions in primary and higher education. The government will also set up a ‘Gender-Inclusion Fund’ to solve the problem of equitable access to education to all girls and transgender students.
EdTech Startups, through better technological and innovative products, need to focus on better learning outcomes, results, and student engagement.
A survey of DU students conducted by DU Express showed that 53.8% of 12,214 survey respondents were not able to attend university’s ongoing online classes. Further, 75.6% of survey respondents said they don’t have a laptop to attend classes or to appear for online exams. A whopping 79.5% of respondents said they don’t have a broadband connection at their home, and a majority 64.3% of respondents noted that they don’t have stable mobile internet connectivity either.
“When we introduce technology, we must ensure that no child is left behind,” said Higher Education Secretary Amit Khare. A dedicated unit to coordinate digital infrastructure, content and capacity building will be created within the newly named education ministry to look after the online learning needs of both school and higher education. Further, teachers would be trained for online education delivery and learning methods in a bid to bridge the digital divide.
The policy also envisions a comprehensive set of recommendations for promoting online education given the pandemic and future lockdowns. This will ensure preparedness to deal with situations where students are enrolling remotely. The big need of the hour is the promotion of alternative modes of quality education and cutting down the reliance on traditional exam-based approach whenever and wherever possible. The National Education Policy opens the doors for this edtech future, but it does need to address the issue of digital divide more clearly and enable seamless education and learning for even the most remote villages in India.
Though the reach of individual edutubers (top teachers teaching on YouTube) has increased and edtech platforms have grown more popular, the New Education Policy and the recent edtech regulations need to be understood and addressed carefully by each player in the segment.
Source: The Economic Times, Business Standard, inc42, India Today