It took a $150 million investment by Japanese conglomerate SoftBank to raise the number of unicorns in the Indian edtech space to two. The fundraise by five-year-old Unacademy, which is now valued at $1.45 billion valued at $1.45 billion The Ken Unpacking SoftBank’s unicorn investment in Unacademy Read more , underlines the boom the sector has seen during the ongoing pandemic. At a time when most other Indian businesses faced massive losses, edtech has been the one segment to go the other way.
Out of Syllabus
Too many tough e-learning lessons for teachers, edtechs
Besides birthing a new edtech unicorn, the pandemic has thrown open thousands of full-time and part-time online teaching jobs—June 2020 alone saw 12,000 open full-time positions. But between pressure on teachers to bring in paid users and the need for edtechs to keep costs low, teaching online is no longer as simple as switching on the camera
Teaching online can turn out to be lucrative; salaries can sometimes go up to tens of lakhs, especially in the competitive exam department
Edtechs are also rapidly growing; companies have raised over $700 million in VC funding in the first quarter of this financial year
The teacher pool is vast but shallow, though, and mass hiring and training makes teacher costs account for near 40-70% of edtechs’ spending
Both parties have to do a delicate balancing act; adapting is key but not every teacher is equipped to handle the demands of the job
