Technology Ushering In A New Era In Education

The education sector is aggressively going digital and looking at mobility and cloud to meet its future demands and improve the country's education system at the grassroots level.

- Shweta Nanda

A few years back, a campaign by Idea Cellular themed ‘Education for All’ had created a positive buzz. The advertisement featured Abhishek Bachchan as an institution’s head, who feels challenged by the capacity of physically bound classrooms to provide admissions to more children who are in need of education. He then decides to use mobile phones as a means to spread quality education and make it accessible to students in the remotest corners of the country.

The advertisement perfectly puts in context how IT can fulfill the vision of providing quality education to the bottom of the pyramid. For a country like India, which is plagued by the issues of abysmal student-teacher ratio, poor accessibility in rural areas, and lack of quality teachers, technology can, no doubt, prove to be a wonder drug.

To get a clear picture of challenges ahead for Indian educational institutions, let’s consider some statistics: By 2030, India will be amongst the youngest nations in the world, with nearly 140 mn people in the college-going age group, according to a report by Ernst & Young. The report asserts that by 2030, the already existing challenges for Indian higher education—access, equity, and quality—will only be greatly exacerbated unless we significantly transform our education model. And this goes without saying that technology will be at the center of this transformation.

Given this scenario, the sector’s investment in IT has been on the rise. According to Gartner, the sector’s IT spending will grow at a CAGR of 12.3% between 2010 to 2015. Increased thrust by the government on technology led transformation in the education sector is also driving IT spending. The focus can be gauged from the fact that in budget 2015, the Government of India allocated $23.6 bn for the education sector. Since FY07-08, the allocation for education has almost doubled.