Executive MBA tested, edtech startups now eyeing 2-year courses

Armed with a boatload of capital and a virus-given opportunity, edtech platforms have stampeded into almost all levels of education. And now, B-schools are on their radar.

After targeting working professionals and executive MBA programmes with a multitude of online programmes offered at lower price points and in a range of convenient formats, edtech firms are now turning their focus to B-school students.

"Edtech firms are making big strides forward in the IT space, training people in specific skills. We are not yet seeing a big impact on the management education or MBA side. [But] it will happen," says Suraj Moraje, MD and Group CEO, Quess Corp., one of India's largest staffing companies that also runs its own management training programmes. "Edtech firms are making distance courses better-quality products and are making executive experiences far more meaningful."

Unlike K-12 school education, edtech can rewrite the whole concept of management education. Traditionally, an MBA is a two-year, on-campus programme. Now, students can, at their own pace, take bite-sized, certificate-based online courses that add up to a degree. A few universities are already collaborating with edtech platforms to unbundle their programmes into stackable courses to make them more flexible and accessible.

"Our institutions are not tuned in to any of these challenges," says P.D. Jose, Professor of Strategy and Former Chairperson of digital learning at IIM Bangalore (IIMB). "Should a student of digital marketing have to learn 40 subjects to earn an MBA, or learn five courses in digital marketing and one or two on basics of management science, and be done with it?" he asks.

Despite their advances, edtech platforms have been student acquisition and content delivery engines for universities as far as management education is concerned. The early ones carried MOOCs (massive open online courses) created by universities, of which a chunk was free or moderately priced. Some edtechs were faculty providers for resource-strapped universities, while others played an end-to-end role.

But the new pool of edtech start-ups wants to have more skin in the game. And more than the top-tier institutes, it's the Tier II and III B-schools that could be at risk.  

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