School Administration and online education

Education premier institute - MIT

Online School Education

Earlier wrote about how my work things changed due to the lockdown and doing work from home. During this phase my kids high school education also got impacted. Few weeks back, had a chat with Indian Express representative regarding online education and its impact on kids & parents. Recently most of the IT companies moved online due to Covid-19, now schools had started school education from home. Adversity for one is the opportunity for another, with Education during Covid-19 is the opportunity for the school administration.

School Education and Content

Kids school education is taking a new trend due to the impact of Covid-19. Schools are pushing their own agenda and taking maximum out of this situation. Earlier almost all the established schools did not have any on-line content.

Online education in India used to be primarily for enhancing specialised skills. This was earlier available for Post graduate programs like Business Administration. With Covid-19 this is coming in to Primary, Middle and High school. In India we have open schooling but the number is far less compared to the classroom based schooling. Open schooling was generally preferred to students who had other special skills that took prime time like Sports, Arts, etc.,

Demand for Online Education

Since there was no demand for online education, the schools also didn’t venture into it. This is a disruption happening in the school education field. One who has good strategy will win.

It’s a win-win situation for all the parties concerned - Teachers, Students, Parents, Government and the School Administration. The teachers currently can continue their teaching without any fear of catching the virus. Students continue their education without any break albeit in new method. Parents won’t obstruct because with online education their kids move forward in academic year. For Government the education machinery is running that feeds into higher education.

In the long-run it’s a definite win for School Administration. Established schools going online gives them a distinct advantage over the new bread of Venture Capital funded existing players. Schools get online content. It would be tough convincing teachers during normal (non-pandemic) time. With pandemic teachers will come forward to create content for Online. All the school administration need to do is make the content crisp.

Online Education and Revenue

In next couple of years schools can take the contents behind a pay-wall. Administration will have two levels of admission - Online and Classroom. Two different fees, evaluation method. Schools online courses can add as a supplement revenue to their offline classes. Most of the parents put their wards into online ‘coaching classes’ additive to the class room education. Established schools will and definitely eat in. If Parents aren’t able to put their kids in 'their chosen' school, they can always enrol them for that schools online classes. If school administration executes this with proper strategy, then it's in for a gold mine.

You win when you make the adversity into an opportunity