Due to the COVID-19 pandemic, almost every industry you could think of had taken a big hit as the economy went on to a slump.


But, two industries that had managed to survive this storm and continued to grow at a steady pace were the Education Sector and E-Commerce.

The global education sector market size has been valued at USD 74.64 billion in 2020.

In order for any industry to stay relevant and thrive in these challenging times, being €œinnovative€ and using technologies to their fullest potential was the key.

In this blog, you will be learning about how Data Analytics technology is empowering the ED-Tech sector.

Key Takeaways
Data Analytics comprises collecting, organizing and storing data in order to mine useful insights from them.
The global education sector market size has been valued at USD 74.64 billion in 2020.
Data Analytics is empowering the Ed-Tech sector by providing actionable insights through features like Adaptive Learning, Intelligent Curriculum, Assisting Management Decisions,
The Pandemic: A Catalyst for the Ed Tech Sector?
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When the global pandemic had struck us, no one was ready.

We had never anticipated any disruptions in the market which would attack us with such severe impact.

While other industries were trying to find solutions to grapple with during these challenging times.

The Ed-Tech sector continued to grow at a steady pace.

The pandemic had forced us to implement Nationwide lockdowns across different parts of the globe, which led to the closure of schools and adversely impacted 1.3 billion learners worldwide.

The Education sector went through a complete revamping from traditional classroom teaching methods to an Online mode of learning globally.

This transition from an offline to online mode has highlighted various loopholes in the Educational System globally, and now measures are being taken to resolve the issues.

Since the Education System went digital, the startups in the ed-tech space witnessed investments of around $1.1 billion in 2020 alone which is approximately a 4-folds increase since 2019.

What is Data Analytics?
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Data Analytics comprises collecting, organizing and storing data in order to mine useful insights from them.

Data Analytics is revolutionizing the Ed-Tech sector majorly in two ways:

Identifying the strength and weaknesses of students
Helping them explore new opportunities
To give you a better understanding of how Data Analytics is empowering the Ed-Tech sector, let€™s take a look at the Indian Education System scenario.

In India, everyone is obsessed with excellent marks and grades. So much so that they do not highly value the student€™s passion or interests.

This has knowingly or unknowingly bred generations of students who have been forced to join the race of rote learning.

We know that every student has their own set of qualities, strengths, and weaknesses, but our Education System has not been designed to cater to customised learning experiences.

This is where Data Analytics comes into play!

We will be learning it in-depth in the next section.

Role of Data Analytics in Ed Tech Sector
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Here are some of the ways through which Data Analytics can be put in use to empower the Ed-Tech sector:

1. Building Statistical Models
Since Data Analytics works on the process of collecting, organizing, and storing data to mine useful insights from them.

It uses these data to build statistical models based on a set of parameters that would forecast the student€™s grade.

If the output shows that the student would be getting a poor grade then the teacher can use this data to devise a customised learning plan for the student and help in play on his strengths and work on his weaknesses.

2. Analyse body language in virtual mode
Non-verbal communication is equally important as verbal communication. It plays a crucial role in learning for both students and teachers.

It could be through a simple head nod or even if the student is gazing out of the window and is getting distracted the teacher would get a cue.

Since the onset of the pandemic, the Education sphere has been completely transformed into an online mode.

During these times several loopholes of e-learning have been highlighted and one of the major difficulties was to analyse non-verbal communication.

Non-verbal communication refers to the transmission of messages through body language, tone, haptics and gestures.

To solve this problem, Data Analytics can be deployed such that it can automatically analyze the body language of a student or a candidate taking an interview through virtual mode.

3. Adaptive Learning
Teachers and students can equally benefit from cloud technology.

Data Analytics in cloud technology plays a vital role in enabling personalized learning experiences.

This is done by sending performance-based messages to students and helping them understand their strengths and weaknesses as and when they’re studying.

This way students need not wait till the result declaration to find out their performance.

This can help in a great way to enhance the performance of their learning and make great progress.

4. Assisting Management Decisions
Data Analytics can play a major role in assisting management decision making.

This can be done by mining data insights to analyse which is the most and least favourite part of the educational institution by the students and allocate budget and resources accordingly.

5. Intelligent Curriculum
As we have already discussed in the previous section, each student is built differently, each one has a unique set of talents, strengths, and weaknesses.

Therefore, each student may have a different pace of learning the same concept.

Data Analytics can be used to design an intelligent curriculum that caters to a customised learning experience for each student to grasp the same concept in different methods which is suitable to them.

How can Actionable Insights help in transforming Education?
So far, we have understood that Data Analytics works on the function of mining data for useful information which when analyzed gives insights. But, according to Brent Dykes, Senior Director of Insights & Storytelling, insights comes in two forms:

Actionable Insights
Non-Actionable Insights
Let€™s take an example to understand this better.

Priya scored 88 marks in the Biology Midterm exam. Here, we know the marks scored by Priya and in which exam.

But, we do not have enough data or context to do a relative comparison with the entire class and see where she stands.

Without which we cannot derive the areas of her strength and weakness.

Therefore, since no action can be performed from the limited data available to us, this example will fall under €œNon-Actionable Insights.€

Whereas, if we say Priya scored 88 marks in the Biology Midterm exam and she falls under the Top 15% of the subject toppers in this Term.

Then it becomes an €œActionable Insight€ as now we have a clarity of where she stands as compared to her peers, whether this subject is her forte or where she needs to improve.

Wrapping Up
In conclusion, the use of Data Analytics is not to entirely replace the existing Education System; instead, it is to empower the Ed-Tech Sector with its benefits.

Data Analytics is empowering the Ed-Tech sector by providing actionable insights through features like Adaptive Learning, Intelligent Curriculum, Assisting Management Decisions, and Customised Learning Experience.

The goal is to enhance the learning experience by assisting the faculty in tailoring their teaching methodology by mining student data to get actionable insights into the individual progress of each student.

Overall, the use of Data Analytics in the Ed-Tech sector is making academic life easier for both the students and teachers.

By RBKavya