The launch of Apple's iPad in India two years ago and subsequent introduction of affordable Android-based tablets has spurred a flurry of activity in digital education.
Many players across the digital education value chain have been partnering to offer customized solutions to both educational institutes and individual consumers. A few examples:
-AcrossWorld Education in partnership with Delhi-based Go Tech has launched a 5,000 rupee ($100) ‘ATab’ device with bundled education content targeted at schools and colleges
-Delhi-based Classteacher Learning Systems has launched ‘Classpad’. Targeted at school students, Classpad provides educational solutions based on NCERT syllabus
-iProf India has launched the iProf tablet and has also made his solution available on other Android-based tablets such as Samsung Galaxy Tab, HCL devices and Reliance Tab
-HCL Infosystems recently launched a 7,999 rupee ($160) Android-based tablet MyEduTab (ME U1) to enable students, teachers and parents to connect, collaborate and share information as well as content over the Cloud.
-Indian mobile device OEM Micromax has launched a 6,499 rupee ($130) ‘Funbook’ with an e-reading app that provides content from publishers like Pearson and Universal Tutors with content for over 500 courses.
The Indian government has also been instrumental in driving the adoption of digital technologies in the education sector. The National Mission on Education through Information and Communication Technology (NMEICT) has been set up under the 11th Five Year Plan to drive convergence in the higher education sector.
The mission has earmarked approximately $2 billion for content digitization and connectivity in higher education institutes to be disbursed between 2008-12. As a part of its plans, NMEICT has set up a program to offers web-based audio/video lectures to students. NMEICT has also launched “Sakshat”, a one-stop open house web portal for knowledge transfer and interaction between students and teachers at various levels.
As for connectivity, NMEICT has tasked BSNL with providing 1 Gbps link to every department of 100 central institutions and 7.5-10 Mbps links to 18,000 other colleges.
Despite many initiatives and a flurry of activity both in public and private sectors, there exist many challenges for mass adoption of tablets in the education sector. Key issues include the lack of digitized textbooks and course content for the formal education sector, fragmented course material for the informal sector, as well as copyright.
Lack of ubiquitous connectivity (outside of campus) and high 3G data pricing is another challenge. A key issue is technology-familiarity and comfort level of some of the stakeholders.
During research, Convergence Catalyst realized that while the management and faculty of K-12 institutes are comfortable in adopting technology, the faculties of higher education institutes are uncomfortable and relatively slow in adoption of digital technologies, content and devices.
The digital revolution in the Indian education sector has just started and there is scope for high growth for any player (with the right proposition) in this space. Although only 7% of over 1 million K-12 schools in India are private institutes, they cater to over 40% of K-12 students.
According to a research report by Indalytics (an education portal), in 2011 about 6.75 million school and college students in urban India had access to smartphones. These students are potential target audience for custom education tablets.
Currently, most players in this space are busy making their presence felt by offering their initial solutions (hardware/software/platform/content), partnering with whichever solution/business model is ready to be launched. We expect this clamor to continue for another few quarters.
But in the long run, to win in the digital education space players will need to integrate across the value chain in a structured way, offering a complete solution including content, connectivity and customized tablet. Convergence Catalyst also believes that in the digital education space, ecosystem-partner driven go-to-market strategy is sustainable in the long term as opposed to retail strategy.
Jayanth Kolla is co-founder & partner at Convergence Catalyst