Putting the Ed in Edtech requires a commitment to Learning

Growth in Edtech investments is not the same as better learning outcomes. That will require tech to better understand the human learning process and solve fundamental problems that plague it. Parents and schools must look for evidence based solutions underpinned by effective pedagogy.

Why the noise? Edtech investments globally have more than halved in 2022. Indian edtech, has not been immune - investments dropped 40%. The industry that could not hire fast enough, has laid off up to 10,000 employees in 2022. Losses are being reported in hundreds and thousands of crores. There are rumblings that the ‘unicorns’ are not so any more,?and in financial trouble. What’s going on?

What is Edtech? Edtech, short for education technology, are products and services that deploy technology for better results in education. At least that’s the theory. For the past two decades businesses have tried to exploit the market opportunity through several buzz and real-world offerings, including: digital classrooms (hardware), learning management systems (software), video content, adaptive learning, big data, and more recently through promises?of utilising blockchain, artificial intelligence and machine learning.

The Covid Factor. Covid, while devastating for most, proved to be a boon for most Edtech companies. Children were stuck at home, and parents were eager to ensure they had an educational alternative and had ways to keep the kids busy. Enter the Edtech companies. Armed with massive funding by venture and private-equity firms, these companies launched a massive advertising and sales assault on parents offering recorded or live videos, various kinds of online practice apps, and also ‘personalised’ tutorial options. These were generally expensive, requiring a commitment of tens of thousands of rupees, or even lakhs, and backed by attractive freemium and EMI deals.

What do parents think? Normalcy returned with the subsiding of COVID; schools reopened, and so the urgent need for engaging the kids at home subsided too. Studies on the efficacy of edtech products began appearing, concerns on screen time resurfaced, and parents became more cautious about jumping on the bandwagon. That in turn has had a cascading effect on sales, valuations, and funding. A study amongst parents showed extremely low-levels of satisfaction with K-12 edtech offerings. Less than one in three parents were likely to renew the product they were using and had a negative NPS (net promoter score, an indicator of likelihood of recommending the product to others).?The No.1 reason for dissatisfaction is quality of the product offering including lack of doubt solving, quality of teachers, and inadequate personal attention.

What does research say? John Hattie of University of Melbourne, arguably the foremost expert on measurement of learning outcomes, studied data of 80 million pupils from 50,000 studies from around the world. His studies found “teacher” related factors have the strongest effect on learning outcomes of students. Hattie also emphasises the importance of softer aspects like students' expectations of themselves and level of ‘striving’/challenge in the learning process. His writings refer to Edtech as the “emperor's new clothes” with “shiny gadgetry” but no data that shows any transformative impact. Not everybody likes Dr. Hattie’s methods and manner, but his message cannot be ignored.

Can Edtech work? Technology based solutions in education are not always doomed to fail. A large-scale study of over 61,000 school age students in India, conducted by my Singapore-based organization, found 31% same-student gains in learning within one year post-COVID. These students were using XSEED, an academic program that combines innovative experiential teaching methodologies with teacher training, technology, and assessment. When some of the students were asked about their own improvement, one 9-year-old said, “Questions that require you to think are not that easy to understand … it took me some time to gain that confidence”. It reminded me of Dr. Hattie’s softer findings on students' view of themselves.

Why is "Ed" hard? Education is an intricate process of human development. It is messy, hard, unpredictable, and happens somewhat differently for each one. Even before edtech showed up - with its promises and failures - education was grappling with unsolved fundamental problems: the diverse distribution of talents, the uneven distribution of motivation, and the move from knowledge to learning. These are hard problems which will no doubt need many iterations. However, the intention to solve them coupled with an evidence based approach is essential. Funding and marketing alone will not do.

The way forward. All evidence to date suggests that there is no one silver bullet. A combination of pedagogy (teaching method, teacher practices), personalisation (some differentiation), and measurement (goals, outcomes, feedback) is the likely way forward. If tech can concretely address some of these fundamental issues, it's in business. If not, we will keep discovering melting glaciers and giants with feet of clay.

?Ashish Rajpal

Ashish Rajpal is an educator and founder & chairman of Singapore headquartered XSEED Education. He has an Ed.M from Harvard University in Mind, Brain, and Education. He can be reached at [email protected].