Category Archives: technology

The ‘new normal’ for teachers

Posted on by
1

As the global pandemic was taking grip on our lives in February, a group of friends started wondering what this may mean for public services the world over. It wasn’t long after that entire public education systems started shutting down and this is when, we, as friends, decided to come together to consider the many aspects connected to school closures, which not only included how home-schooling and technology works, but, importantly, also about the widening of inequity.

These Zoom calls provided a safe space for discussion and exploration, and the honesty that system leaders brought to these meetings resulted in ideas being share devoid of politics or ideology, which itself felt like a watershed moment.

They spoke about issues such as school feeding programmes and what works, they talked about well-being and what’s being put in place for children, the discussed how to open schools up, again. They even explored whether this crisis presented opportunities for wider reforms.

I also convened a call with teachers, where I heard stories from the front-line that angered me. On that particular meeting, and in the few days after, I’d been reflecting on what I heard and decided that the concern wasn’t just about the immediate circumstances we face, but also about what the future holds for us. In common parlance, teachers were asking what the so called ‘new normal’ means for them.

Given I used to host the Global Education & Skills Forum, some of my teacher friends encouraged me to convene a virtual conference for teachers that attempted to answer that question. Our initial instinct was to bring just our friends together for this conversation, but given that technology now allows us to reach all corners of the world, I decided that we’d try to make this a global conversation. Why not?

Covid-19 has, at least in my opinion, for the first time, resulted in large swathes of the world – whether you are in the global south or in a western industrialised country, to a common experience. What that means, and I heard it for myself in several calls I had convened, is that a learning from one part of the world could be applied to another context.

In the absence of system leaders having any precedents to fall back on, I felt that providing teachers a platform and voice could be an incredibly powerful thing to do. Why shouldn’t teachers set the precedent, after all they’re at the front-line and dealing on a daily basis with such difficult issues! Let them set the pace.

That’s how T4 was born. We decided to focus on these four areas (hence the name): teacher well-being, teacher collaboration, teacher leadership and teacher technology as these were the areas that teachers were most often mentioning to me. Since launching the conference just two weeks ago, I am astounded with the level of interest this event has generated.

I’m really looking forward to hosting the event next week. I hope you’ve registered. I’d also be very grateful if you could take this poll as it’ll inform my remarks at the event.

Can UK EdTech catch up with its older siblings in FinTech and HealthTech ?

Posted on by
Reply
Vikas Pota, Group Chief Executive of Tmrw Digital

In the wake of London Tech Week and London EdTech Week last month, there is a sense of renewed optimism about the state of the UK EdTech industry at the moment, coupled with a distinct feeling that it maybe be gaining prominence compared to its flashier, more established counterparts in Health Care and Finance – which itself has recently been under the spotlight for London Fintech Week.

A tangible UK EdTech growth spurt is in evidence.

From 2014 to 2017, investment in European EdTech start-ups more than tripled in size, from €140mn to €490mn, with 35% of this €490mn figure attracted by UK start-ups and roughly a quarter of Europe’s EdTech companies based here.

While €490m represents just a third of the venture funding invested in US EdTech in 2017, just five years ago it was a tenth.

Britain’s growing status as an EdTech enabler

Britain’s growing status as an EdTech enabler has also just been enhanced with the announcement that The World Bank, University of Cambridge and UK tech companies are partnering with the government’s Department for International Development (DFID) to create the largest ever education technology research and innovation project.

This EdTech hub will conduct research into how innovations can be evaluated, scaled-up and used across developing countries in particular.

That’s £20mn of aid and a lot of expertise focused on helping teachers and governments around the world, particularly in African nations, choose the right technology for their classrooms.

Innovating education in Africa

At Tmrw Digital we have long been advocates of the pressing need to innovate education in Africa as a global imperative, so the creation of this new hub, with real investment from government and a meaningful partnership with the right blend of players from academia and the private sector too, is hugely welcome.

London Tech Week, although only six years old, really came of age this year as Prime Minister Theresa May opened it for the first time.

The PM used the occasion to announce a £150mn investment in quantum computing and 2,500 AI course places at universities, with 1,000 scholarships across the country. At the same time, she noted tech companies around the world are investing £1.2bn in Britain.

This kind of priority given to the sector, backed with meaningful investment and a further bringing together of relevant partners and players, is just the kind of activity needed to boost, underpin and give real meaning and weight to the government’s recent EdTech Strategy.

EdTech has a severe funding challenge

We must remember, however, that while UK EdTech companies raised £300mn in funding between 2010 and 2018, this is still dwarfed by funding in UK Fintech which received £2.6bn in 2018 alone.

By revenues, the global EdTech, Fintech, and Digital Healthcare sectors are all roughly the same size, so it’s no exaggeration to say EdTech has a severe funding challenge – fragmented and drawn-out buying cycles often mean that investor returns in EdTech simply aren’t that attractive.

Specialist EdTech investment funds and accelerators are a large part of the answer, yet they are still few and far between, especially in Europe, although there are notable funds such as Emerge Education in the UK, and Brighteye Ventures and Educapital in Paris, a growing EdTech hub itself.

Assuming the funding is there, there are many areas of EdTech growth and opportunity. There is the growth of:

  • Kids coding
  • Language learning
  • The shift of online content towards lifelong learning
  • Corporate learning
  • And no shortage of companies providing software to improve educational outcomes at schools.

EdTech has huge potential to improve the efficiency and outcomes of learning and I expect to see some big winners in the space over the next few years.

Lifelong learning leading to vibrant EdTech hybrids

The lifelong learning trend is particularly advantageous for EdTech firms to move into, as its market space is so broad and covers so many sectors.

It is also an area of key interest in the government’s EdTech Strategy, which says it sees an increasing role for digital technology supporting adults in up-skilling and re-skilling throughout their career, particularly in response to changes in the labour market.

Interestingly, with the EdTech market covering such a wide range of technologies and applications:

  • Learning / educational platforms
  • School administration
  • Learning management systems
  • Communication platforms
  • Study tools, and
  • Learning analytics

Some notable intersections with HealthTech and FinTech are becoming apparent, as they begin to produce some vibrant EdTech hybrids.

The financial education for university students app BlackBullion and Lexplore, which helps children with reading difficulties such as dyslexia, are good examples in this regard.

One of the UK’s fastest-growing industries

As one of the UK’s fastest-growing industries, with a 22% revenue growth year-over-year, and accounting for 4% of all UK technology companies, EdTech’s steady rise is good news for a country currently facing ongoing Brexit uncertainty.

London’s preeminent position as a launch pad for EdTech startups and its growing reputation as a leading hub – with many foreign nationals choosing to establish their EdTech companies in the capital – is also unlikely to change soon.

If the UK can continue to nurture companies and connect the wide variety of stakeholders in the industry, we are in the right place to continue to contribute to – and benefit from – the sectors upward trend.

Vikas Pota, Group Chief Executive of Tmrw Digital

This article appeared on FE News on 25th July 2019

There’s great news to share…

Posted on by
Reply

Friends,

After eight years at the helm of our Foundation, I believe the time has come to pass the baton onto a new leader who can to take our organisation forward with the ambition and vigour it needs for the next stage of its life.

So, today, after a momentous journey working with an incredibly talented and dedicated team, I am formally stepping down as Chief Executive of The Varkey Foundation.

My deepest thanks are owed to Sunny Varkey for placing his faith in me and giving me every support in establishing the Foundation. He gave me a once in a life-time opportunity to make a difference to the education of children throughout the world.  I’ll always be truly grateful for this privilege.

I am, also, delighted to announce that Cate Noble, our current Chief Operating Officer, will become our next CEO.

Cate carries a wealth of experience and is finely placed to lead the Foundation into new project areas. Her expertise in educational development is world-leading and I know, from our working relationship to date, how determined she is to extend the reach and weight of our voice, as well as our impact on the ground. I am certain she will make a great success of her new position.

It has been an incredible privilege to have led our organisation since its inception, and I am honoured that the Varkey family and Trustees have now asked me to serve as Chairman of the Board of Trustees. I look forward, in this role, to helping shape its future strategy and provide as much support as I can to its vital mission.  We are a Foundation that has much to be proud of and that has so much more to give.

Together, we elevated subjects such as teacher status from the preserve of policy-makers and panel discussions into issues that seized the imagination of the public around the world.

We have stimulated debate, informed decisions, and taken action to better the life chances of some of the world’s most underprivileged children. For example, our programmes in Uganda, Ghana and Argentina, are helping to improve the capacity of the teaching profession, disseminating learning and raising awareness of key subject areas, including leadership, girls-ed, and student centred pedagogy.

We have also lead in understanding complex education debates through publishing groundbreaking research on teacher status, parental attitudes on education and the hope, fears and ambitions of generation z.

Many well wishers have told me that our greatest contribution to education debates is the Global Education & Skills Forum (GESF), and who am I to disagree?. The highlight of my year is always the final evening of the GESF when we announce the winner of the Global Teacher Prize and the eyes of the world are rightly focused on teachers.

Five years ago, when we launched the Global Teacher Prize none of us could have imagined what we would achieve together. It has not only unearthed thousands of stories of teacher heroes but has given me some of the most humbling moments of my life. I have met some of the world’s most inspirational, selfless and resourceful people, who could have applied their talents to many other things, but have chosen to devote their lives to the next generation.

I have never been more aware of how teachers are responsible for the future – to the world that will be shaped by the children they teach.

It has been an incredible journey, where I have learnt a lot. I have many questions that remain unanswered, mainly around the subject of technology and the promise it holds. For this reason, I am honoured to have been asked by Sunny Varkey to establish an organization that seeks to build further understanding about the role of technology in education.

At the Foundation, whether it was the delivery of high quality satellite enabled teaching into classrooms in refugee camps, or in rural locations to reach marginalized girls using an interactive platform we invented, or our first online course on school leadership going live in Argentina, technology has been a great force multiplier, which is why I remain curious as to why despite the marketing of many ed-tech innovations none have really broken through.

I will be setting this new organisation up to advance the case for education technology but also to understand fully the context that is required for it to fulfil its potential. I hope to work with all stakeholders and experts in this endeavour.

As an example, we know teachers are central to education. How can tech support them better so that they can be more effective in their classrooms?

This is especially important in middle and low-income countries that have not yet benefited from the fruits of tech development.

The new organisation will also investigate new technologies and how they can break down barriers to education in deprived parts of the world, and, as a base point, will build upon this year’s discussion at the Global Education & Skills Forum, which looked at how we can marry western-centric development with the explosion of innovation and start-up entrepreneurs from the global south.

I have, as many of you will know, half-joked in the past about the old fashioned pencil and paper being the best tech resource in constrained environments, and I am often pulled up on this by those that say that the mobile phone is now common place.

If this is, indeed, the case, then my question is how can we improve the life chances of those who, at best, have only an android device and a 3G connection? The conversation we’ve been having through the Broadband Commission about 5G becoming standard in these areas is all well and good and gives a positive message about the future – but we do need to bear in mind these constraints and that they currently apply to a very large group of people throughout the world today.

The success of our Foundation in highlighting many of these educational inadequacies, and identifying solutions, has been remarkable, and is directly attributable to the Varkey family, our incredible team, our dedicated partners, friends and well-wishers, like you. From the bottom of my heart, thank you.

There is more to do, and, together, I am sure we will continue to do everything we can to help make a difference to the education of children around the world.

It has been a pleasure and an honour to have served as the first CEO of our Foundation, and I ask, now, that you extend a hand of friendship to Cate, like you did for me. Please join me in wishing her all success as our next Chief Executive.

With gratitude and best wishes,

 

Vikas