Education and Employability
India’s edtech battleground is heating up
14 Jan 2021
The shopping philosophy of an online customer is hardly
unique. There are two basic criteria: best deal and the best product. It
doesn’t matter which site he or she is shopping from. Just like the e-commerce
business, education technology, or the edtech space in India, is fast becoming
a vast hunting ground for the best deals in online education courses as global
giants and local players with deep pockets jostle to lure Indian parents, on
whom the cost of education usually falls.
Recently when e-commerce major Amazon announced the launch
of its online test-prep platform Amazon Academy in India to help students
prepare for competitive examinations including the Joint Entrance Examination
(JEE)—the entrance test for engineering colleges—many wondered the rationale
behind such a move. Ankur Bisen, senior vice president, retail and consumer
products, Technopak points out that Amazon had to make this move in order to
get a higher share of the larger consumer spend. “Everyone is playing on price
and some kind of a local connect. Edtech is a price sensitive market because a
lot of students in the test prep industry are not from affordable and
aspirational households. There are many from middle class and low income
families,” Bisen says.