AI can transform education for the better
AS PUPILS AND students return to classrooms and lecture halls for the new year, it is striking to reflect on how little education has changed in recent decades. Laptops and interactive whiteboards hardly constitute disruption. Many parents bewildered by how their children shop or socialise would be unruffled by how they are taught.
The sector remains a digital laggard: American schools and universities spend around 2% and 5% of their budgets, respectively, on technology, compared with 8% for the average American company. Techies have long coveted a bigger share of the $6 trillion the world spends each year on education. When the pandemic forced schools and universities to shut down, the moment for a digital offensive seemed nigh.
Students flocked to online learning platforms to plug gaps left by stilted Zoom classes. The market value of Chegg, a provider of online tutoring, jumped from $5 billion at the start of 2020 to $12 billion a year later. Byju’s, an Indian peer, soared to a private valuation of $22 billion in March 2022 as it snapped up other providers across the world.
Global venture-capital investment in education-related startups jumped from $7 billion in 2019 to $20 billion in 2021, according to Crunchbase, a data provider. Then, once covid was brought to heel, classes resumed much as before. By the end of 2022 Chegg’s market value had slumped back to $3 billion.
Early last year investment firms including BlackRock and Prosus started marking down the value of their stakes in Byju’s as its losses mounted. “In hindsight we grew a bit too big a bit too fast," admits Divya Gokulnath, the company’s co-founder. If the pandemic couldn’t overcome the education sector’s resistance to digital disruption, can artificial
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