Edtech in India

In present times, Education has become a commodity to generate wealth, attract investment and thrive on the fear of the parent community. when a lot of ed-tech companies are mushrooming like anything, we need to deliberate on the utility that they serve.

Misleading advertisements, Aggressive sales practices, recurring frauds with parents, students, and employees are questioning the purpose they are trying to serve in society. To appease their consumer base, most of them resort to spoon-feeding or entertaining the students. We need to understand the difference between Education and Entertainment, the former inculcate critical thinking, scientific temper while the latter is short-lived and mostly non-rewarding.

When J.S Mill criticized the idea of Jermy Bentham that says, “The push-pin is as good as poetry.” He clearly differentiated between the quantity and quality of pleasure, according to Mill “higher pleasures are more valuable than lower pleasures, because of their “intrinsic superiority”.

If we see this concept is in the light of the modern education system which is highly commercialized and valuation oriented. The quantity is dominating the quality by a far greater margin than one could have thought fifty years ago. Technology-assisted teaching can revolutionize the Indian education system, our dream to become a knowledge economy by 2030 can be achieved if we work with the right mindset within the legal and ethical framework to empower the students by adopting an outcome-based approach rather than outlay based approach.

What are your thoughts regarding the present scenario in the education industry? I would be more than happy to know them.