With the advent of edtech and the rapid digitisation of education in recent years, every element of education and training has changed through technology. Classes have shifted online, doubt clearing sessions are scheduled on student portals, exam registrations are done on websites, and so on.
Among the changes, one that is emerging as the fastest and most enticing for students is the digitisation of extracurricular learning and activities.
What is ‘Extracurricular Learning’ in edtech?
Due to the growing importance of holistic development, extracurricular learning is becoming one of the fastest-growing areas of educational technology (edtech). Extracurricular learning mainly includes activities such as yoga, general culture, arts, crafts, dance, and reasoning.
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Given the vibrant and profitable potential in the field of extracurricular learning, many start-ups have emerged with innovative ways to seize the new opportunities.
Yellow Class – a key extracurricular learning player
Yellow Class, the ‘Online Free Hobby Classes for Kids’ platform, is an edtech company that focuses on extracurricular activities as teaching pedagogy. The edtech start-up offers children a wide range of extracurricular learning activities through its live instruction platform using artificial intelligence to ease up interaction and participation.
Yellow Class was founded in June 2020 by Anshul Gupta and Arpit Mittal to provide free extracurricular and leisure activities for children under the age of 12. More than 1 million children have participated in over 150 million minutes of activities on the platform. The start-up also plans to add new categories such as musical instruments and sports under its ambit of extracurricular learning.
Yellow Class has raised $6 million in Series A funding led by Elevation Capital. It will use the funds to improve products, develop richer content and increase recruitment and expansion to more than 500 cities in India and other regions.
Market insights
The extracurricular learning sector in India has witnessed steady growth in recent years. The segment is expected to reach $5.8 billion in valuation by 2021. In its current form, which is a fragmented market dominated by local and small businesses, the market has a lot of potential for companies to become industry leaders.
Since most school programmes and education infrastructure are purely academic in nature and usually do not focus on the holistic development of children, extracurricular options of learning available easily online are coming to the mainstream. Today’s parents highly favour alternative ways to promote children’s hobbies and other activities.
How can new edtechs enter this segment?
As mentioned above, the extracurricular learning market is witnessing an upward trend due to the transforming face of education and increasing competitiveness. Students and parents alike want to engage in multiple productive activities that can form their base for holistic development.
Start-ups and emerging businesses must heed these tectonic changes and start building solutions to fill the gap between traditional education and edtech. Just like Yellow Class has jumped in this industry, gaining a much-needed beginners’ advantage, other businesses can also follow suit and develop unique one-stop-shop learning solutions.
Businesses and entrepreneurs operating in the edtech space can adopt digital extracurricular learning solutions and training modules. They can focus on a wide range of topics and mentors like influencers and professionals who can enlighten the young minds about alternative careers and productive extracurricular activities.
While using children-friendly edtech solutions, entrepreneurs can also use e-gaming, AI gamification tools and features like interactive chatbots to keep students engaged. Edtechs can also deploy digital activities such as polls and quizzes in the user interface for more engagement.
Essentially, by creating a new category in the ed-tech space and giving kids easy access, fun, and interactive classes, edtech businesses can grow their ventures in the edtech boom while helping students learn actively and passionately.
