Education Industry Will Double In Numbers Post COVID: Ronnie Screwvala

With the nationwide lockdown, education technology, popularly termed EdTech, is undergoing a tactical shift in terms of demand. Even regulators and nearly every educational institute has moved to the online space to impart education under these unprecedented times. 

To discuss the long-term impact on EdTech and future requirements of the EdTech players, BW Businessworld in association with BW Education organised the BW Dialogue on Entrepreneurship with the executive chairman and co-founder of online education platform upGrad, Ronnie Screwvala. 

Launched in 2015, upGrad is an online learning platform catering to the higher education segment providing industry-relevant programmes. The company’s is to be a B2C (business to consumer) enterprise, creating an immersive learning experience – anytime and anywhere. 

In conversation with Dr. Annurag Batra, Chairman & Editor-in-Chief, BW Businessworld & exchange4media Group, Screwvala expresses that the COVID pandemic has led the EdTech players to deeply invest in learning experiences. 

He said, “There is a deep sense of learning experience that needs to come whether it’s the K12 or higher education or test-prep sector. And the companies that have been around for the last four to five years in building EdTech platforms even before this present pandemic which has only made it more acute, are the ones who have deeply invested in learning experience and insuring that online learning is equal to offline learning in many aspects.” 

The first-generation entrepreneur further said that there is a sense of urgency that has crept in for most of the people, which is good. “The educational institutions and the government have woken up and are evangelising that,” he pointed out. 

Furthermore, talking about the future of EdTech industry, Screwvala stated that India can be a global destination for online learning as the country does not lack if compared to others. He also believes that post-COVID the education industry will double in terms of investment and consumption.

upGrad currently has a paid subscriber base of 20,000 students and the company aspires to add five to seven thousand students per quarter. The online learning platform has also collaborated with several universities but do not desire to have an offline presence as it firmly believes, ‘To get to scale, it needs to be 100 per cent online’.