Illustration by Raj Verma
Institutes of higher education in India have been looking beyond physical classrooms and paper-pen assessments for a long time. In spite of this, adoption of education technology, or EdTech, did not become a huge trend. The Covid-19 outbreak has changed this. As the pandemic forced education institutions to abandon face-to-face teaching, educators turned to technology for everything, right from conducting entrance exams and course delivery to assessments and managing their knowledge repositories. Digital whiteboards, hybrid classrooms, adaptive tracking camera systems, display equipment and audio-visual technologies are the new buzzwords at education institutes.
"Today, India finds itself doing well in the global EdTech Index with Bangalore and Delhi at 7th and 14th positions, respectively, globally. While the EdTech space had been growing at a steady pace over the years, the pandemic accelerated this growth, making way for a massive expansion in the sector," says Raj Mruthyunjayappa, MD & SVP, International Operations, Anthology Inc, a global company which sells solutions that augment classroom learning.