Shiksha Opinion: Is test prep in India going the online way?

Is test prep in India going the online way?

Every year in India, more than 45-50 lakh students appear for different admission tests. According to sources, in 2013, the test prep market (online, offline coaching centres offering mock tests and study material) in India was worth $2.2 billion. Experts estimate that this year, the test prep market will fetch upto $3 billion by year end.

As per statistics shared, the money earned by coaching centres in India is more than 10,000 crore a year and online coaching is estimated to provide 10% of the overall business and is the fastest growing component of the coaching industry.

Picking up this trend, Samsung Electronics on September 2, 2014 tied up with Byju's Classes to offer India’s first digital education store – Smart Learning. This online solution offers students interactive study material over a wide variety of subjects/topics right from school level to entrance exam prep.

Thus, the industry is fast accepting online coaching initiatives and students too are picking up such means to train themselves to fare better in their MBA competitive entrance examination such as Common Admission Test (CAT) as well as GMAT.

In an interview with The Times of India, Chairman of Manipal Global Education, TV Mohandas Pai shared that the Manipal Group-funded education startup Think and Learn tied up with Samsung Electronics to offer CAT, GMAT, JEE and the civil service exam coaching. The content for these classes is offered by Byju’s Classes.  Byju Raveendran, the founder and CEO of Byju's Classes further shared in the article that, “Since the soft launch in May, sales through the tie-up are already at Rs 15 crore compared with a total of Rs 20 crore in the whole of last year”. It has also been shared that more than 9,500 students have bought these courses so far. Out of this number, more than 4,000 have been for test prep. Sources shared that the fee for test prep for CAT/GMAT//GRE starts at Rs 20,000 whereas the cost for crash courses can go up to Rs 35,000.

Thus, the online coaching initiatives are widely accepted and availed by working professions who are looking forward to enhance their educational qualifications. But what about students who are looking to give an engineering entrance exam right after class XII?

We researched further and found that students are also offered coaching to clear the Joint Entrance Examination (JEE) Main and Advanced, on the lines of MBA prep. The most popular company helping students prepare for engineering entrance exams is iProf, which offers education through both online and offline mode. Founder CEO of iProf, Sanjay Purohit shares that 80-85% education offered by them can be done in “asynchronous mode” but for the rest, they provide means to students to interact with teachers which can be through phone, live video sessions or drop boxes. He also shared that 55% of overall revenue of iProf comes from test prep.

So, as per stats, the online coaching trend is definitely becoming more and more popular. But is it the best way forward for students? To understand that, we made a list of pros and cons for students looking to join online coaching for clearing competitive entrance examinations.

Pros

• Saves a lot of time
• Classes are unlikely to get cancelled
• Anytime learning
• Anywhere learning
• You can study subjects/topics in whichever order you want
• Lay more emphasis on your weak areas
• Very good for mock tests
• Easier and quicker to introduce new features/topics
• Everyone is offered equal opportunity to study from

Cons

• To undergo coaching online you need to buy a computer/laptop/tablet which can be an expensive affair
• The classes offered are generic in nature and are not constructed to provide individual attention
• No immediate solution to difficulties one may be facing in a particular topic/subject
• Connectivity issues
• Chances of distraction are higher

Yes, we agree that online is the way to go forward and also that technology makes the teaching-learning process extremely easy and interesting.

So, summing it all up, we at Shiksha feel that it is good that we are accepting technology and using it to better our educational system. However, here students too should be cautious and take this new and improved means of educating themselves very seriously. As they say for success there is no short-cut and one needs to work extremely hard to achieve their goals.

We also feel that at present everyone, including our teachers and students, is not that comfortable and well-equipped to teach or crack exams by simply going through online modules so till we develop a more fool-proof system we should simply use it as a supplement along with offline classes. With due course of time when we are better acquainted with the entire system can we think of shunning the traditional offline classes and relying only on technology to educate us better?