Technology disrupting education positively in a big way: entrepreneur

For the first time, technology is enabling education in a big way disrupting learning positively, especially during and after the Covid-19 pandemic, noted a leading edtech entrepreneur at the Qatar Economic Forum 2023, powered by Bloomberg." A recent Bloomberg report states, finally tech has positively disrupted education in a big way. For the first time, we see how tech is enabling education. Global edtech market is growing 16.5% while Indian edtech sector is growing at 40%,” said Divya Gokulnath, co-founder and teacher at BYJU's, an India-based edtech company.Gokulnath was interacting at a session during the forum along with Byju Raveendran, CEO and founder, BYJU's, in conversation with Mallika Kapur, deputy global editor, Bloomberg Live Experiences who moderated the session on Wednesday, the second day of the forum that concluded on Thursday.The session highlighted that school leaders and educators have been in a state of constant adjustment over the past three years. In reaction to the Covid-19 pandemic, they developed new protocols and incorporated digital tools for remote learning.Raveendran highlighted that every form of communication has changed drastically over the years except the classrooms. "Everything has changed in the last two decades about how we consume content, how we consume entertainment. But our classrooms have not changed very much for over 100 years. We have not made it easy for students. So for the first time, we have an opportunity for making it easy for students,” he explained."These are very early days in terms of what technology can do to enable learning both inside and outside classrooms. BYJU’s could be the largest education platform currently but there is a long way to go about what technology can do in the education sector. This is largely an underinvested sector and every country needs a platform like BYJU’s,” stressed Raveendran.According to Gokulnath, there are over 150mn students across the world who learn from BYJU’s platforms and services all the way from online to offline learning." Online learning is part of mainstream learning but it is not the only component. There are some components of learning which are best delivered online while several others offline. There is a steady growth in edtech platforms especially after the pandemic. It is what started happening during the pandemic and it is still growing. So edtech and online learning are transformative and they are to stay here for sometime,” said Gokulnath.According to Raveendran, technology allows to personalise learning the way the students want. He noted that movie like scenarios can get positive outcomes, and make learning engaging and effective to get the attention of the students."Now students can decide the pace of learning, size of learning and style of learning and there is lot of scope for improvement. We started completely offline and then we pivoted to online and today we have our programmes in hybrid learning format. We have come to know that it is the students who needs to have a choice about how to learn and where to learn from and how much they want to learn,” added Raveendran.