The combination of digitization, mobile penetration and mobile apps is about to profoundly impact the delivery of education.
The small screen size of mobile phones may not be amenable for sustained learning, but it is emerging as a significant support tool.
Tavess believes this technology combination can make teaching and learning more engaging, and enable communications anytime and anywhere, asynchronously or in real-time.
Convergence has unleashed new opportunities for learning and collaborative interaction. It empowers students and instructors to be creative and enhances students’ interactivity and engagement not only in-classroom but also beyond.
With seamless connectivity among students and teachers, classroom discussions become on-going conversations, sometimes for months, where discussions are carried on social networking platforms.
Lessons are being augmented with images, audio and even video and can travel across time to bring more life to teaching and learning.
Another facet of Mobile apps for education is social and informal learning, where students can easily tweet questions and answers, conveniently take down notes and share online instantly. This ability brings a whole different dimension and paradigm to learning, and that the opportunities are virtually endless today for facilitating ubiquitous teaching and learning.
Apple alone offers more than 350,000 free course lectures, videos, readings and podcasts from universities and institutions worldwide. The “anytime-access” to a vast storehouse of knowledge right at the fingertips can enrich learning tremendously.
Mobile education in India
Technology penetration in general settings remains painfully low in India, limiting the adoption of mobile apps. Tavess estimates the potential size of the Indian education-based mobile apps market to have been $3.6 billion for the year 2010, and expects this to rise to $10.8 billion by 2015.
But the realized size of the market was a mere $73.9 million, with growth to $240.9 million expected by the year 2015. These figures highlight the untapped potential in the Indian market.
Market Overview & Opportunity Snap-shot (India):
2010 | 2012 | 2015 | ||
|---|---|---|---|---|
Number of Universities | 481 | 515 | 548 | |
Number of UG Students | 3,100,000 | 3,875,000 | 4,843,750 | |
Number of PG Students | 300,000 | 375,000 | 468,750 | |
% of Students Using Smart-Phones | 20% | 24% | 33% | |
% of Students primarily accessing Internet on Mobile-Phones | 50% | 65% | 80% | |
Market Size (US$ Mn) | 73.92 | 104.04 | 240.97 | |
Market Potential (US$Mn) | 3,628.80 | 6,350.40 | 10,808.04 | |
Content On-Demand | Visual illustrations; Exam-oriented material and tests; Knowledge-base | |||
Applications On-Demand | Real-time collaboration and exchange portals | |||
The Indian Education market is fairly occupied by traditional organizations which believe that relying on technology dissolves the human aspect of education.
To fully realize the potential of smartphones and mobile apps, the traditionally-bound wide-spread teaching fraternity will need hand-holding until they develop awareness and comfort in using technology.
Keerthi Chandan is senior analyst – ICT markets at Tavess. For more info contact: keerthi@tavess.com or go to www.tavess.com