Half of Indian parents don't want to send children back to school; Byju’s, Unacademy emerge as preferred platforms

Even as the government plans to re-open schools, most Indian parents are not comfortable about sending their children back to institutions, reveals a new survey. Instead, they have turned towards ed-tech platforms for virtual learning. According to YouGov’s latest survey, half of the parents (49%) are either not very, or not at all comfortable with sending their children back to school.

A quarter are ‘somewhat comfortable’ while only another quarter, (26%) are extremely or very comfortable with the return.

At present, seven in ten (72%) parents confirmed their child’s reliance on online classes conducted by schools or colleges in order to educate themselves during the lockdown. Among these, some are dependent solely on these classes (44%), while others are taking them along with home schooling (28%). The rest of the children are being home schooled without any online classes (17%) or not engaging in any form of learning due to lack of resources (11%).

During these times, Byju’s and Unacademy have emerged as preferred platforms. Byju’s stands as a prominent name, with 65% parents claiming to be using this app for their child’s education. The platform is more popular among tier I students (75%) as compared to the ones in tier II (64%) or tier III (57%) cities.

Unacademy (30%), Vedantu (29%), Udemy (25%) are some of the other apps being currently used to support learning.

The online medium also comes with its own set of challenges with parents worried about their children’s screen time. Around half (48%) are worried about their child developing some health issues related to the increased screen time. Slightly lesser have concerns about technical issues (low internet speed, etc.) and reduced or lesser face time with teachers (43%).

“The current situation has increased the popularity of e-learning platforms and has opened up a great opportunity for those in online education business. In the days to come, e-learning will assume greater relevance and hence it is imperative to review the changing needs of students as well as their parents, and address their concerns in the most effective way,” Deepa Bhatia, General Manager, YouGov India, said.