Yesterday, the network giant Vodafone Idea announced its arrival in the Edtech sector. The education sector has seen immense growth in the last few years. As many as 6 Indian Edtech companies Byju’s, upGrad, Vedantu, Unacademy, and Eruditus have achieved unicorn status with Lead being the sixth. So what is tech trying to solve in the Indian education system? Let us understand.
Promotes individual centred learning
Right now, the Indian education system has been preparing students for breadth rather than depth. The syllabus is vast. Currently, a student has to focus on all the subjects. It inevitably means that students cannot rely merely on focusing and sharpening their strengths but are forced to iron out their weaknesses. Though it sounds great in theory, focusing on your strengths is what the world currently requires. The technology assesses the intellectual proclivities of the students, based on it provides appropriate curricula for the student and optimal pedagogical approaches.
Skill-based learning
The purpose of education is skill-based learning. The experience of designing anything is a departure from the usual analysis-oriented activities in which students engage themselves. Technology provides students with synthetic skills – skills students need to construct things.
Transfer of knowledge
The theory of transfer, on which the current curriculum, both consciously and subconsciously makes students look for common elements that connect what people already know with a new situation. Technology shall make elements perceived by students to be the same between a past and present situation are not intrinsic like things, but are “read” in terms of that individual’s culturally-influenced category system of problem types. Currently, knowledge transfer requires situation analysis, a determination of how prior knowledge bears on the situation because the problem reminds the thinker of previous problem cases or types.
Technology shall make students analyse greater use of everyday situations in constructing problems for students to solve and to make the links between the outside world and the classroom more explicit. Another way that schools foster knowledge transfer is to do a better job of integrating learning across the different subject areas and it can be achieved via the medium of technology.