Exclusive Interview with Akhil Ranjan Jha, Director, Comprehensive Consultancy

In an exclusive interview with DQ Channels, Akhil Ranjan Jha, Director, Comprehensive Consultancy Pvt. Ltd. talks about the future of Hybrid learning culture in the education sector, different opportunities for partners and how EdueBook.in and PartnerWins.in will help partners in this transformation journey.

One prominent trend that is now emerging is EduTech and hybrid work culture. Especially in the education domain, now the work system has moved from work from home to a hybrid system. So, how do you view the growth of EduTech in the hybrid work culture and how do you plan to harness this opportunity?

The growth of hybrid learning in Edutech is compelling at the moment, we are all aware that there are since 24 months now that we've been locked down fully, or partially due to this pandemic, and because of which a lot of our lives have gone online, and so has education. It's now the time to bring back to physical. So, there is a compelling reason that both need to exist. So, therefore, hybrid learning has become absolutely a must. It is, hybrid learning is actually, it could be compelling for two reasons, two categories of reasons. One is a compulsion because you can't do without it. And the other is that if you see the benefits, and you go for it, so right now, it is actually both, because so let's look at compulsion.

There was no choice when we were not able to move out of our homes, or children were not able to go to schools or students were not able to go to colleges, they had to come on online because otherwise, classes would not resume. And so online became a compelling mandatory requirement.

At the same time, we all know that there is huge advantages plus huge disadvantages of having pure online. In our scenario, even today, at school level be it at IIT level, at every level, you will find that all students don't have the right access to online in the sense that there are people who stay in remote corners, where internet penetration is not the best. Secondly, you know, power backup is also not the best. I know for one that at esteemed institutions like IIT, there are students who have been asked to come into the campus and then do online, just because at least they will get the internet in the power backup. India is such a large country. So it's a problem for all across right from primary education to the highest level of education. So, if that is the kind of problem with online, so, the physical is a must, you cannot just have online, leave aside this. There is also another problem that you know, there is huge fatigue of doing online, I will give you a small example, when I have been talking to our customers are some of the sees most of our customers or educational institutions. When I talk to certain professors in colleges, they would say, you know, if you want to have a meeting, obviously, it can't be physical now, but if you do a Video meeting, the problem is, you know, whole day we are taking video online classes. We are so bored of a video meeting that I will call the requisite people, you will do a video meeting, but nobody will pay really good attention. So there is an attention span problem when you have to deal with it completely online, or fatigue, whatever you call it. And obviously, everybody knows that physical is different from online to the extent that it is. So there are compelling requirements to be physically present as well as to be online, online for safety online for benefit of being able to access something remotely online for the benefit of not having to commute but online for not having to spend so much of time and money on physical presence. But at the same time physical presence for the benefit of touch for the benefit of avoiding the dependence on digital and etc. So these are the compelling part of the requirements. Of course, there are benefits also, never ever before one thought that you could actually be able to track if you did it properly. If you could actually be able to track that which student in which semester in an engineering college, that student having roll number this of semester number that whether he attended the 32nd class of a particular course in the year two of his engineering and how much attention he has paid and what was the kind of questions he asked in class never it was possible to have this kind of data. Now, that is possible because of online. So, benefits are also there. Events and unfathomable benefits have come about which people were not ready to listen to. But today people are realizing. So there are both sides of the coin. Having said that, it is obvious that therefore, hybrid is here to stay, you know, it is such a convenience, if Professor could actually take class, you know, and be at the lab at the same time. It is almost like multiplexing or being available at two places at the same time, just because we can take an online class sitting in another lab. So, this is also something that is very interestingly beneficial to the educator and the students also. So you have to have online and you have to have physical. So this hybrid, and that's what we're calling hybrid, right? So, hybrid is definitely here to stay and hybrid is grown immensely because of this reason. In fact, I don't think that it is yet grown so much. It is online, which has grown so much, but the hybrid will grow now. See the other compelling requirement, which a lot of people are not able to understand. I'm talking about the educators primarily. And also when a school or a college resumes classes and call students to the classroom, they are unable to call 100% of students to the same classroom. And scenario, when they are not able to do that, what do they do? So most of them are, you know, kind of resorting to three days a week class, or do alternate, even odd roll numbers kind of thing. But does anybody have twice the number of classrooms that they will accommodate one at one vote? No, they don't and neither can they suddenly double the number of classrooms? Or for that matter? Do they have twice the number of teachers? No, they don't. So they do not have twice the number of teachers. So it is not possible literally to do a 50-50 simultaneously. But somebody will have to be engaged. So given the situation, what is the ideal situation that whatever is being taught in the class is being the across the net online at the same time, so that 50% is attending offline physically in front and the other 50% attending online and concurrently. So that is going to be the real strength of Hybrid Theory. And when that happens, you need certain tools in EduTech to be able to deliver this properly, such that and deliver this and for the students to receive this. So there are obviously certain EduTech requirements, which are blowing up in this direction. And so this growth, this growth is yet to really explode, but it is going to explode.

What are the unique features of Indian EduTech and how can the partners help it grow?

The biggest role that the partner and the SI can do is to be able to guide the educational institutions. Which in turn, of course, the students will be guided by when I say guide, this is what I mean, today, if you look at any I'm leaving aside exceptions. Of course, there are exceptions who would have, thought through the entire process very well, and would know all these things. But if I leave that, then most people are still, you know, grappling with the idea of how to grasp with the EduTech that that will be correct for delivering the hybrid. See somebody is doing a smart classroom, somebody is doing it from the laptop, but they're not sure that what will be the best. When I talk to people I know people who are setting up studios to record lectures, is that really going to work? Maybe yes, maybe no. But nobody really fully aware that okay, this is the best thing that is going to work for us in the ideal scenario, and there are challenges to online teaching and hybrid teaching. One of the key challenges is that, how much will we talk about smart classroom virtual classroom online education, which has been there, for now, a decade in some form or the other. But when a teacher walks into a class and starts teaching, using some tools, the digital tools that we provide for typical online education, you know, what happens, they are not used to that they are used to writing on a big board by the board or a blackboard. And then partially also use presentation etc. But they used to write on that. And when they suppose they have to take a device like that, then chances are that you know, there is a PC, there is a smartboard, there is an interactive panel, there is a projector there is a UPS So a teacher will not come in and set up all these things and then start teaching after the time the thing doesn't get used. That is why the situation is like that. So ideally, you need something which is very simple, that teacher walks in and can just start teaching as usual as before, obviously, it's not the same. But if you can get delivered near 100% Physical teaching experience, then only that hybrid learning will, in the true sense, fly. But for that to happen. That's the role that the partners have. we need to go and be able to educate our customers in terms of educators that this is how you need to approach the matters, because in the absence of that, and the partners are not geared for this, I'm telling you. Because of this reason, in absence of that anybody and everybody is trying to go and sell some audiovisual equipment, some tablet and customer are also not very much aware of setting up studios, but maybe it's not going right in the right direction. But what to do, you know, it has also come as a surprise. So it's not like something is doing good or bad. But I'm just saying this is the way partners can really play a big role.

Also view: Exclusive Interview with Lokesh Bajaj, Vice President Schoolnet India Ltd.

Microsoft has introduced partnerwins.in. And eduebook.in. So in your opinion, how is Microsoft enabling the partners/ ecosystem?

Microsoft has been kind of embedded in the IT environment for every user in day to day living, by the virtue of Windows Office, and all of us are aware of that. And use it be the student, the educator, or anybody. But Microsoft has taken a lot of steps, way beyond the normal from virtually being used for official work for some online meetings like stuff, Skype that has formed into the new of the teams and what teams were two years back and what teams is now Microsoft Teams is Heaven and Hell difference, it is really evolved at a very fast pace and met most of the requirements that are really desired on the online platform. Now, that is something huge that Microsoft has done. And that itself has enabled online learning for almost, they have searched from virtually nowhere to be the most dominant player, anywhere across India, across every state across the world everywhere. So that is one very basic core platform, which has helped Microsoft to, you know, enable this kind of a learning environment. Now, look at what, what else is to be tied up there. And I think that's where Microsoft has done some good initiatives in bringing in the Edubook and the partner wins. So, when you look at Edubook, it's basically like a playbook where you will be able to understand that what are the various components of setting up a hybrid learning EduTech environment and be at the educator and or the student and so and each of these components, how they're making it available. The partner has to play the role of guiding the educator and thereby the student. At the same time, the partner has to be guided this partner. So, Edubook plays a fantastic role because it is giving you each and every component how it is mapping to the Microsoft offering and how it is taking care of the entire ambit of requirements. And so far partner wins is concerned, obviously when you encapsulate this entire process is a success story and make it available for different partners to you know, learn from that and replicate such situations, it's a very good plus, it becomes a lot easier to take into the market.

What are the different opportunities for Partners in the Edu Tech sector?

The most important opportunity and the most important role that the partner would have to play and utilize this opportunity is to basically guide the educational process in a given institution or across the various customer base to empower them for hybrid learning. And the good thing is that they can then get the following opportunities out of that, how is that the one is obviously you will have educator training, you will have student training. Second is you will have the devices going to be educators, you'll have devices going to the students, it's not like people will not using devices, right. But let's look at an example that, you know, if a teacher really wants to teach today, he will probably like to write something. And if you have to write something, you need a device like a surface, a Microsoft Surface or some equivalent such device. So that is something which people are not able to they're grappling with, you know, what really should I do, should I attach a digitizing tablet to my existing laptop should actually shift to a tablet, should my tablet be large enough, or you know, what kind of stylus is really going to work. So that is where definitely there are a device refresh requirements. Even if the device was there with educators, they will need to have a different device today. Because they need to do concurrent teaching, just like concurrent learning. And likewise, for students, their access devices will come into play. Obviously, that access device is a lot more important today than earlier, because most of their access devices possibly was being largely used for fun and games. I'm talking about the student side, which now is used to be used for more much more serious and in rather important purposes. So you have the device ecosystem, which is going to be an opportunity here, all the devices on both sides, you have the training, which is going to be required for both sides because its people are new to it on both sides. Then thirdly, what you will have is that how do you connect that. So you know, everywhere there is going to be connectivity. You know, everybody had internet, everybody had the network. But those are that much more key today. Unlike before, see the fabric or the bandwidth. What was there earlier may not be sufficient today, if you have, let's say 100 people in a classroom of which 50 People are present. But earlier, they were possibly not all online at all the time, but today, they are all online and all the time and on video. So the bandwidth needs are very different. So maybe if you had a skeletal Wi-Fi, you will have to, you know, beef that up into something better, then accordingly, security issues come into play, it is not going to be that easy as before that, you know, I really don't want to go into the internet. So how much security Do I really need? But that's not true today, you have to go to the internet. And therefore you will require security on every device on every platform across your firewall, etc. So opportunity that every step. So you have the device opportunity or the training opportunity, you have the networking opportunity, you have the security opportunity, and then a lot of things have moved on to the cloud. So you have the cloud opportunity, then you have certain third-party applications, which will be required, built on maybe the Azure platform, which is going to be for using, maybe conducting some laboratory exercises, which normally, we're being done offline. But, not all labs can be done online. But there are some which can be done online. So if you were to simulate and do that online, it is not already. So you need infrastructure or you need an application to plug into your infrastructure. So that's also an opportunity. So the opportunities grow.