Chennai: The education sector continues to thrive in India. According to a July report by ibef.org, the sector is expected to reach $101.1 billion in FY19. With over 39,050 colleges and 903 universities in 2017-18, our country saw the enrollment of over 36.64 million students for higher education.
The report also noted that India has become the second-largest market for e-learning after the US. ‘It is expected to reach $1.96 billion by 2021 with around 9.5 million users,’ it said. Several startups have chipped into this market, hoping to make a dent among students by providing different online services.
City-based, uLektz is one such EdTech SaaS platform, that aims to build an ecosystem for higher education by connecting all stakeholders of the field and offer students with a suite of applications for education, skill development and careers.
The startup claims to have over 3 lakh students and educators from 500+ colleges and universities registered to its portfolio. NewsToday reached out to the founder and chief executive officer, Sadiq Sait for an interview.
Excerpts
Q. How different is uLektz Learning Solutions from others?
uLektz is a first-of-its-kind edtech SaaS platform providing one-stop solution for all the needs of higher education stakeholders. It helps connect all stakeholders of higher education and offer them AI (Artificial Intelligence) based 360-degree personalized guidance and appropriate resources, systems and services for enhancing education, skills, and ensuring students’ success.
Q. Tell us about recent trends in the education sector
With technological advancement in automation, AI and machine learning, the needs of industry and society are rapidly evolving. This leads to a situation where most of graduates coming out of colleges and universities are either unemployed or underemployed due to lack of industry-required latest skills. To solve such problems of unemployment and underemployment among graduates, colleges should provide more flexibility with on-campus, online, and on-the-job learning.
Q. Does the New Education Policy (NEP) 2019 have any impact on higher education?
Yes, the NEP 2019 proposes a lot of changes in the regulatory and accreditation framework. Most of the proposed changes will have drastic impact on higher education. It is evident that we need some serious structural changes. The proposed National Higher Education Regulatory Agency (NHERA), which will merge and control all the education bodies like UGC, NAAAC, AICTE, etc., is a good move towards creating a transparent regulatory system. But, to ensure quality outcomes, NHERA should primarily focus on students, and its role should be to serve them.
Q. Steps you have taken to reduce unemployment and underemployment?
To solve these problems, we help connect students and educators across institutions to share knowledge, experiences, and expertise, and offer them personalized guidance and appropriate resources for education, skill development and careers using AI and Machine Learning.
Q. What is the education destination preferred by students?
USA, UK and Australia have been the preferred education destination. They prefer to study abroad primarily for greater career opportunities and to experience diversity.
Q. How has the journey of uLektz been so far?
The past three years have been great learning experiences with a lot of challenges and opportunities. It had been a major challenge to position uLektz appropriately in the market. Because of its comprehensiveness and tight integration of multiple products as one solution, it wasn’t complex and confusing to many of our clients.