Kraftshala, an online skilling institution, is committed to revolutionising the educational experience for Indian students on a mass scale. Founded in 2016 by Varun Satia (Ex-Nestle) and Eshu Sharma. Kraftshala has grown phenomenally over the last couple of years because – In the education sector, a significant challenge lies in the gap between securing a job post-education and obtaining a degree.
MI speaks with Varun Satia, Founder & CEO, Kraftshala.
Read on.
Q) How do you see the Edutech industry growing in India? What is the impact of its growth on people?
Varun: We live in a country of 1.4 billion people where most companies still struggle to find skilled talent. This is a massive opportunity that will take hundreds of organisations to solve over the next few decades. Edtech has helped bridge this gap somewhat in tech, but outside of coding and data science, the gap is as wide as it always was.
The reason this gap is so wide in non-tech fields is because, in the age of AI, there is a rapidly declining demand for people who can only perform manual or repetitive tasks. What companies need today are problem solvers. However, in an education system where learning is reduced to memorisation, and exams are poorly designed, most students are woefully underprepared.
Edtech is the only solution to this problem. It can be the biggest driver of employability in India for two reasons. First, it allows students from even Tier 2 and 3 cities to learn from high-quality coaches who are great problem solvers. In our programs, for example, CXOs of Nestle, Google, and Publicis are coaching students on their work. Students from Tier 2 towns are hungry and want to make a mark; for them, Edtech is an amazing boon. Second, it is affordable at 10-20% of the cost of offline education.
Also read: One of the biggest sectors to benefit from advent of AI is the edtech sector: Anish Srikrishna, CEO of TimesPro
We are just getting started with the Edtech story. India is going to be the largest Edtech market in the world, and almost certainly, we are going to have Indian companies become global behemoths.
Q) Do you think having this huge number of edtech platforms in India can help reach a goal of a smart and intelligent generation? Or can it lead to overlapping each other in the quest of competition and henceforth a rather weak education system?
Varun: Competition generally strengthens a system, with only the best companies standing out. It’s the government’s role to create an even playing field, and thus far, the policies have been designed and implemented fairly.
The students themselves are becoming good at identifying which competitors are worth their money. For example, in our category, everybody claims massive placements. So, students ask for placement reports, and they go on LinkedIn to check how the alumni of an Edtech are doing. They connect and speak with them; and that is how they figure out who’s the real deal.
The massive advantage of being in this industry is that you can’t fake outcomes, thereby forcing organizations to either have highly effective learning systems which deliver tangible outcomes or students will make them go out of business sooner or later.
Q) Several students tend to work outside India. How do you see this change over the years? How can Indian employers change the ecosystem to provide diverse job openings to allure students to stay in their homeland?
Varun: I think India being the fastest growing economy for a few years will help enormously, as will solving some quality-of-life challenges. Pollution, for example, is a big reason why our cities are less liveable than they were before.
Another point to note: a lot of people first go abroad to study, thinking they’ll land a role there. These folks are facing a harsh reality check when they notice their degrees aren’t really converting to job opportunities outside, at least not to the extent of making their massive investment worth it. It has been concerning to see the vast number of Indian parents send their kids to foreign universities at a time when the value of those degrees is rapidly declining. What is worse is that many gamble big by taking out loans of tens of lakhs.
Students go outside not because of a lack of diverse opportunities but because of a lack of access to those opportunities. Large companies have had a set way of evaluating talent and looking for one or the other credential to hire. With a limited number of top-quality institutes, a bulk of students are left wanting and thus seek alternate paths. Companies are always in short supply of skilled folks and edtech can play a big part here by giving them an alternate way of evaluating talent and making sure this talent is ready to deliver from Day 1.
Also read: MetaApply one of the reputed edtech organisation for study abroad introduces – international study abroad advisor.
There are lots of opportunities here, and Indian employers need to sell that story well, just as students and graduates need to be aware of the pitfalls of taking loans to study in foreign universities.
Q) What is the biggest job placement challenge in India?
Varun: The biggest job placement challenge in India is the lack of problem-solving skills due to an education system built on rote learning. Another significant challenge is the quality of English communication skills in India. We have 240 million people on paper who can speak English, but most are under confident and ill-equipped to handle clients and work with global stakeholders. If you can learn how to solve problems and be reasonably proficient in English, you can crack almost any placement.
