An accomplished executive, Ankit Agarwal is the Co-founder and COO of Crejo.Fun, India’s go-to online platform for extra-curricular activities for children aged 4-14 years. In his present capacity, Ankit is responsible for overseeing the business operations of the company. He guides the team in framing effective marketing strategies and shares useful insights into the budgeting process of the company. Being a people person, Ankit loves to have interactive sessions with his employees and takes a keen interest in their growth and development activities. Ankit has a rich educational background with a B.Tech degree in Electrical Engineering from IIT Delhi and a PGDM in Finance, Economics and Strategy from IIM Bangalore.
EdTech gained prominence post the surge of digitalization in education, which drove several countries to replace physical classrooms with augmented online learning. These include extra-curricular activities, a space that in the past has been predominantly unstructured and hyper-localized to the neighborhood academies. Needless to say, EdTech players banked on this opportunity, and the market saw a slew of funding in the ECA space.
Today, an increasing number of new start-ups are jumping on the wagon of the blazing start-up ecosystem to offer extra-curricular activities through customized online programs and apps, gamified tools, edutainment apps, etc. Advanced technology has driven the masses to adopt extra-curricular learning along with digital academics, which is seen by educators and parents worldwide as an important catalyst in the upward end growth of a student’s learning graph.
Edtech Companies in Extracurricular Activities tapping into Online Education
2020 saw a paradigm shift, not only in the way we see online education but also in how we perceive extra-curricular activities. Children are often unable to get access to experienced ECA teachers locally in the activity of their choice. This is where online ECA platforms have stepped in by enabling access to high-quality, experienced teachers from a wide variety of disciplines and bringing a strong focus on pedagogy within extracurricular learning, leading to accelerated adoption of online ECA in the past year.
Besides these, let’s take a wide-angle view on how Edtech start-ups in the ECA space are reshaping the learning framework.
Access to global standard education
The emergence of Edtech ECA companies has proved to be a game-changer. Such companies provide students with seamless access to trained professionals across the globe. They increasingly try to impart an education that meets the quality and curriculum of standardized education globally via online ECA, which provides children with immense learning exposure. The exposure not only raises the bar of teaching but also organizes the fragmented Indian ECA market, catering to a vast section of the untapped audience.
Effective pedagogical approach
Due to the lack of investment in education, the Indian ECA space offered a traditional curriculum and inadequate learning resources to children. However, the recent tech-driven offerings by Edtech startups are bringing forth an age-appropriate curriculum for children. This takes into account the varied developmental and learning needs of children, which are in sync with parents’ expectations.
Enhanced stickiness of learning
Keeping the learning desire intact in children has been a constant worry for parents and teachers, but after the entry of Edtech ECA startups and their tech advancements, the facts have changed. Such startups have developed AR tools that create engaging and personalized learning experiences for children through adaptive learning. Moreover, computer vision and augmented reality have been introduced to help students map their progress while making learning more fun and interactive.
Increased socio-cultural interactions
Edtech start-ups and their creative tools and platforms have made the world a global classroom. With the help of live sessions, children can learn extra-curricular activities like dance, music, painting, etc., from any corner of the world. Besides offering rich cultural learnings, such classes expand the social boundaries of children and help them become more socially confident. Although the argument against digitalization of education has been limited to social interactions between children, Edtechs in ECA have covered the gap by providing a fun digital environment for the kids to interact with each other.
Making children tech-savvy
The world is whirling into a tech hub, and being tech-savvy is a crucial requirement. Fortunately, online ECA platforms are doing the same with their AR tools. It has led to an emergence of positive screen time, wherein children spend time online learning and building a gamut of skills rather than watching cartoons or playing video games.
Conclusion
Edtech start-ups have changed how parents and children see extracurricular activities. Innovative solutions offered by such start-ups have not only enhanced the role of ECA in Edtech but also found ways to overcome the obstacles (to a large extent) of remote learning and teaching created by the pandemic. Therefore, investments in ECA must be carried on to effectively bridge the gap between classroom education and augmented learning.