This phenomenon is not due to the lack of availability of jobs, but it is happening due to non-availability of skilled candidates for the required jobs. NASSCOM says 6 million people are required in cybersecurity by 2022 but we have a skills shortage. Top 10 IT companies take only 6% of the engineering graduates. What happens to the remaining 94%?” (~CP Gurnani, Tech Mahindra). Another study made by Aspiring minds said “<1.5% engineering students from IT branches could write correctly compiling code. Employability for mechanical & civil engineers were ~6%, while it was as low as 1.7% for chemical engineering”.
This not only emphasizes the requirements of skills for graduates passing our every year but also stresses the importance of lifelong learning. The reason for this could be skills getting redundant at a very fast pace and more importantly lack of Industry Focus Education thereby increasing the mismatch between industry requirements vs education curriculum in the colleges.
To fill this gap EdTech can play a very important role. Even the New Education Policy 2020 (NEP) have also tried to address this topic by allowing following measures:
- The top 100 universities are permitted to offer online degree course.
- Interdisciplinary offering, Mid term dropouts in bachelor’s programs to be given credits by forming an Academic bank of credit.
- Top Indian institutes are encouraged to build/advance their global presence and vice versa.
Due to these changes the EdTech platforms now can partner with universities to offer online degrees. Due to Unbundling of courses and Democratization of access for online education and increase the completion rates have increased. Thus, the new NEP has effectively opened the full higher education market for online players by creation of credits bank and allowing multiple entry/ exit points.
Expansion led by demonstration of outcome by EdTech, coupled with mindset shift, macro factors will lead to a growth in addressable or serviceable market for online education to about 30-35 million learners by 2025 thereby signifying the role and importance of EdTech organization in solving the Skill and employability related challenges.
To summarize, Online Higher Education & Lifelong learning market is poised to grow ~10x over next 5 years to reach ~$5 Billion by FY 2025 due to relaxation of regulations of online degrees and transition to credit system.
Online Education and EdTech 