Edtech start-ups like Byjus and Topper business go down as offline schools, and coaching starts full swing.

Edtech or education technology start-ups {companies founded by one or more entrepreneurs who want to develop a product or service} like Unacademy, Vedantu, Class plus, Meritnation, Byjus, Brainly etc. Create a more professional, engaging, exciting environment, making visual learning more accessible. The goal was to improve students’ outcomes, enhance their pre-existing abilities and reduce the teaching burden. They help us to learn outside of the classroom environment. And studying in it is comparatively cheaper than the traditional form of education, where we get a variety of subjects to pursue, and we can learn at our own pace and environment, which lets us study at our own convenient time. E-learning platforms expose the student to a wide variety of themes and features. It is even convenient to learn and watch lessons in your own native language. E-learning platforms became the most recent hyped-up platform during the pandemic, which was a very emotional phase for all of us. It became easier to circulate all forms of knowledge and information through Edtech.

Now Edtech sector is in crisis post-pandemic as Covid is restrained and at ease. After the new normal has been removed from the old ways, it has sparked a crisis in the Edtech sector; funding that was flowing quite well in the Covid times has slowed. The valuation has also been stagnant as parents give more preference to offline classes as they are worried that online education will not have the same impact on their children as the offline classes. Several behaviours have been noticed as students were waking up minutes before a class. The interaction that we have with our teachers offline was lacking in online mode, and after a point of time, the motivation to study was also negligible. They would often play games during their online classes took. Place my own brother used to secretly open games and just listen to the voice, mostly ignored it too parents were bound to give the children cell, and most of the children used it for different purposes rather than attending their online classes.

As the impact of the pandemic in our society started receiving, and the educational institutions started to re-open, these start-ups are now facing a huge downfall. If we see in commercial ways, also these commercial platforms are in huge loss as mostly the students have less time left with them to attend online classes as they spend the rest of the day being physically present at the course, so they are tired and stressed to even enrol or open this online sites.

Employment-wise also, the online tutors, who used to gain a massive profit during the pandemic times, are in loss, a hybrid model cannot run for too long, and as physical interaction is significant, it increases concentration, builds a bond between teachers and students. So that the teachers can connect, interact with the children in a better way and teach them with real-life examples.

Several incidents were noticed in the continuation of the online classes where students were very unresponsive, and the teachers felt like they were teaching to just a cellphone or laptop. The sudden loss of internet connectivity was also a hindrance, and many children whose families could not afford smartphones would leave them behind. Therefore the re-opening of the school and colleges were a must as nobody should lack knowledge in our country everybody has the right to education.

Personally, for me, children should be given in-person classes, it will benefit them immensely, and it will make the child social and inquisitive, it will increase curiosity in him to raise his doubts in the classes as most children cannot due to network disturbances and many more issues in the online mode of study.

By Miss Nikita Dutta