One sector which is going through a significant transformation during the COVID-19 pandemic is – education. Online learning is being enforced across schools, universities, and offices. There are many opportunities in the EduTech ecosystem, and entrepreneurs need to understand the opportunities before starting their e-learning business.
In this blog post, we share five opportunities for entrepreneurs and cover the pain points addressed through online learning.
Majority of the schools are closed due to the COVID-19 pandemic. While nations are trying to control the situation, teachers have adapted to a new way of teaching – online learning. In a short period, traditional schooling has evolved and is replaced by web conferences, virtual classrooms, and more. More can be added to the list, but most importantly, the coronavirus has taught the education community that e-learning adds convenience and can be implemented on a large scale.
Many schools in the US remain closed due to coronavirus. Northshore School District, which is one of the largest schools in the US, recently announced that all its branches would remain closed due to coronavirus as well. In a recent blog post, the superintendent conveyed that Northshore will be shifting education from the classroom with four walls to the cloud. During the pandemic, one may find many examples where schools are being pushed to adopt the online-only model of teaching.
Sending someone through a university may require financial sacrifices. The education divide is constantly widening due to rising college tuition fees. Many experts believe that academics, who are in a position to design courses for students, develop a curriculum that may not match the requirements of the current workforce. After gaining a formal college education and spending thousands of dollars, job seekers often have to sign up for short courses to improve their skill set with practical insights.
According to the Manhattan Institute for Policy Research, the cost of higher education in the US has increased by nearly 200 percent. During the pandemic, one clear alternative to attending traditional classroom-based learning at universities is e-learning. Even before the coronavirus, students were able to earn college degrees online, but the number of options was less and relatively expensive. The cost of earning an online degree is less than receiving a full-time degree, and quite remarkably, the value-add remains the same for both.
Most employees find it difficult to change and improve their skill set in times of perpetual disruption. Such behavior is not good if one wishes to stay relevant in the job market. Many factors contribute to shaping the future of work and increases the scope of reskilling. Some factors include – technological changes, government regulations, health concerns such as coronavirus, work expectations, and more. To stay relevant, reskilling the existing workforce involves competency-based learning as well as massive open online courses (MOOCs).
As many nations across the globe are on lockdown due to the COVID-19 pandemic, employers are seizing this opportunity to push reskilling among their employees by leveraging e-learning. Competency-based learning is being preferred by major companies like Delta Dental, FedEx, Blizzard, and more for a variety of reasons. For an employer, the benefits include improved work quality, lower operating costs, and more.
The executive education program has seen the least traction in the past few years. There can be different possible reasons behind such slow growth. One of the primary reasons is – executive education depends on tacit knowledge. Tacit knowledge involves a mentor imparting education to an executive through face-to-face interaction. There are three fundamental components of tacit knowledge – standard teaching, lectures and discussions, and deep interactions. E-learning has begun sowing seeds of inspiration in the field of executive education as well.
The concept of online learning satisfies the three components of tacit knowledge. For example, instructor-led training (ILT) approach can be adopted by an e-learning website where the instructor can impart executive education in almost real-time and have interactions through voice and chat. Furthermore, an online learning website adds value by giving more options to the student. A student can easily hire the best teacher available on any given subject.
According to McKinsey, nearly 30 – 40 percent of the US workforce are independent contractors and freelancers. Technology and shift in thought-process have led large enterprises to embrace independent and temporary workers in the new era of Work 2.0. The search engine giant, Google, has more temporary workers than full-time employees. After observing such transformation in the corporate workforce, the education sector can add value in a unique way to complement this change.
To work in the gig economy, an e-learning website can offer short-term courses such as basics of managing a freelance profession, fundamentals of finance, setting up a website to showcase portfolio, basics of entrepreneurship, and more. The course list can also include technical subjects such as web design, web development, data and analytics, artificial intelligence, and more. Disrupting how hiring is done in startups, small and medium businesses (SMBs), and large organizations, the gig economy is here to stay.
Download our whitepaper to learn more about how the education sector is adding value to the economy.
There is a lot that the COVID-19 pandemic can teach an entrepreneur. The revolution brought in the education sector through e-learning is the most recent example. Time is of critical importance, and entrepreneurs can start their online learning website by leveraging a ready-made e-learning solution such as Yo!Coach and significantly reduce the time-to-market (TTM).
It enables an entrepreneur to build a competitive advantage and utilize many essential features that bring ease in management. Some features of Yo!Coach are – multi-lingual support, teacher slot booking, video chat, file sharing, collaborative document, text chat, rating and reviews, gift cards, and much more.
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Tushar Kumar works as a Team Lead - Content Marketing at FATbit Technologies.
