Disruptive Trends In The Education Industry

The education industry is undergoing some disruptive trends and here’s what they are.

- Nigel Yap

For years the education industry has had a more or less winning formula, one that has seen the education industry grow and track across the horizon. In recent times however, there’s been some developments in the education industry that has come to disrupt that smooth growth.

The rallying cry among many higher education startups is “disrupting” the industry as we know it. Some of the education sector’s most celebrated and best-funded startups focus on providing alternatives to traditional postsecondary education, or challenging traditional approaches to higher education.

Sure, there are aspects of the education industry that seems worthy of disruption, and they do face serious challenges: flat enrolment trends and demographic headwinds; appropriate concerns about debt levels and increasing costs; and growing numbers of struggling institutions. But the intense focus on “disruption” as a guiding principle often overlooks that delivering higher education is a large, diversified, and resilient market.

What’s more, over the next decade the global market for higher education is forecast to grow by many millions of students each year, on the strength of rising middle classes and respected and still growing value of traditional degrees internationally.

TECHNOLOGY THE BIGGEST DISRUPTER

It’s no denying that the education industry is at a digital crossroads. A bigger shift is underway in how higher education operates in a world that is increasingly digitised. Educational institution leaders are increasingly willing to work with technology and services partners and various “enabler” firms that are much more integrated into their operations—not only at the margins of their value chain, but at the core.