The big edtechs in India have primarily focused on providing supplementary education. That is trying to replace the coaching classes rather than acting as an alternative to schools. Even during the pandemic, parents worried about their children’s future and couldn’t rely on their children’s limited lessons in school. Edtech gave a ray of hope of reviving the situation for students and, consequently, parents. However, even though edtechs have been around for a decade now, they hardly succeeded in avoiding learning losses for children.
Technology in education should not be limited to just supplementary education. It should use it to revolutionise schools. Online schools are one way of doing so. A child need not compromise on quality education just because it is not available in their locality or due to other such barriers.
Let’s understand how online schools can replace edtechs:
1. The Home Advantage
While edtechs mainly cater to an individual student’s learning outcomes, online homeschooling has the advantage of studying with peers, similar to a regular school. A consistent study shows that peer-based learning is more beneficial to students.
Before the pandemic forced all schools to go online, online education was mainly supplementary. However, in recent months, online schools have built trust among parents and teachers that quality education through online mode is possible if the right tools are used. With the ‘at home’ advantage, students can study in the best possible environment and get a quality education at the same time.
2. Save Time
One of the most important criteria for choosing a school for parents is the distance from their home. No parent wishes their child to spend long hours travelling in the school bus to attend a good school far away from their home. It is also impossible for every parent to relocate or choose a home to ensure their child attends the best school. With online schools like 21K, parents don’t need to compromise on the quality of education based on their location. The child will save precious time and effort spent travelling and use it more productively. For example, one can use even an hour or two saved due to ‘no travel’ to follow a hobby that will benefit the child. Also, because the school provides high-quality education, the child needs not to invest extra time in edtech apps. The overall productivity of the child automatically improves with online schools.
3. Access to the Best Faculty
Gone are the days when just a select few students studying in the best schools got to learn from the best faculty. Students from tier-II towns or even students living in the suburbs didn’t get access to good quality teachers. This led to an upsurge in the adoption of edtech apps. However, with the opening of online schools, students living far away from the best schools can also access the best faculty. Additionally, the access to good faculty is no longer limited to the physical capacity of the school. Also, there is no restriction on learning only from the local faculty. The best online schools can enable access to even international or national experts on subjects.
4. Access to the Best Peer Group
One of the vital components of receiving a good education is the peer group. Parents struggle to find the best school with the best teachers and where parents compete to get admissions. However, due to the limited capacity of physical schools, not everyone can get admission to these schools. With the advent of online schooling, there is no such limitation. Also, unlike using edtech apps, where students mostly learn in a silo, online schooling helps enable peer learning.
5. Helps Optimise focus
During the pandemic, there was a massive surge in the use of edtech apps. However, soon people realised that these apps only provide information or regular content and do not have a structured learning path. On the other hand, online schools provide the requisite high-quality learning with an experience similar to regular schools. With a well-defined school curriculum and structured lessons, students can focus more and achieve better learning outcomes.
6. Increased parent involvement
Another advantage of online schools is that parents control their child’s learning progress. While Edtech apps have little to no parent involvement, Online homeschooling has increased parental involvement because the parent is aware of the child’s progress through all tech-integrated dashboards. The parent also has higher visibility of their child’s quality of education. With more insights into the child’s progress, parents are encouraged to actively work with teachers to improve their child’s performance.
Conclusion:
To conclude, though online schooling started gaining momentum due to the pandemic, it is here to stay. With more and more millennial parents realising the benefits of online schooling and their increased concern about the quality of school education, the best online schools will become more widespread across India.
21K School is India’s first online-only school. We offer transparent and quality education, regardless of your situation and location. Our teachers and students come from around the globe. We are currently enrolling students for Nursery through Grade 12. The school conducts online live classes for 1-4 hours, 5-6 days a week (according to your child’s grade) and follows an annual academic calendar.
Some salient features of 21K School are:
- Regular lessons by trained, highly skilled and experienced teachers
- Special lessons by subject experts and real-life achievers
- Online events and conferences
- Electives and capstone courses
Furthermore, our subject experts and real-life achievers will also take special lessons throughout the year. As a part of the annual calendar, we have also planned Online Events and Conferences. Additionally, we offer Summer School Programme as a part of the academic programme to all students.
