How many of you remember those days when your best friend showed up just two or three hours before the exam, explained all the concepts, and somehow, it worked?
We often felt like he explained things better than our teachers. It is something we all thought about at some point.
We couldn’t understand the same concept in class, but when he explained it, we got it. Does that mean our teachers didn’t teach well? Not really.
The real reason was something called an “X” factor—interest. Interest in teaching. Interest in learning. And that interest was missing in millions of people.
In classrooms, it was robotic. Coaching centers were crowded. Teachers repeated content. Students were bored. Parents were frustrated. Everyone just wanted “results.”
That’s why even before COVID, a quiet revolution had started.
Smartphones became cheaper. The internet exploded. And suddenly, a student in a small town could watch a lecture from India’s best teacher on YouTube for free.That’s when interest returned. Learning started feeling fresh, simple, and exciting again.
This wasn’t just about technology; it was about bringing back curiosity. That’s where EdTech saw the spark.
EdTech has revolutionized the way people learn. Right from schooling to UPSC, every single exam or subject has been taught in an interesting manner, and visual-based learning also worked.
There was a huge boom, and many startups have entered this space, but many companies failed. Why is Indian Ed-Tech is failing?
Before that, let’s understand the whole story.
Today the Indian EdTech market is currently valued at around INR 64,875 crore and is projected to reach over INR 250,650 crore. These estimates were according to the Internet and Mobile Association of India (IAMAI) and Grand Thornton Bharat.
The same EdTech market was valued at around $2.8 billion in 2020.
It clearly shows how rapidly it is growing. Though it all started back in the 2014-16 period, the actual boom started with Covid.
Many startups have begun operations, started offering various courses and sold them.
There was a tremendous demand because there were no offline sources available, neither schools nor tuition and coaching centers.
So along with interest, the lack of offline access during COVID created massive demand for EdTech. It led to a huge wave many startups have started received huge funding.
Before we dive deeper, let’s understand the EdTech more by understanding the different segments in EdTech.
The Indian EdTech space is made up of several segments like K-12 learning, test preparation, online certification, skill development, language learning, and casual learning.
Out of all these, the K-12 segment (school-level learning) has been the most popular in India. It attracted the most users and attention. Next in line was the test preparation segment especially for competitive exams. Then came online certifications, which also grew steadily.
At first, everything seemed to be going well. The market was growing fast, users were joining in large numbers, and funding was flowing.
But this perfect picture started to crack around 2022.
To give you some context more than 2,000 EdTech startups shut down in the last 5 years. On the outside, it all looked promising. But deep inside, problems were quietly building up. Massive funding, big acquisitions, celebrity endorsements, and millions of users. But behind the scenes, cracks had already started forming.
Let’s understand Indian EdTech startups are facing difficulties:
Too much content but little connection: With the rise in competition and funding to the companies, they have kept on creating more and more content, but it has led to very little personalization.
It became like a digital version of the classroom, the same recorded video for lakhs of students without knowing who’s actually watching or whether they even understand.
At some point, students stopped caring. The same “interest” that brought them in slowly faded.
- Chasing growth and ignoring learning: Many startups during these periods were obsessed with user acquisitions, app downloads, daily active users, and then the funding rounds.
But they actually missed out on focusing on learning outcomes. Many companies forgot that education is not a product. - Affordability: Most of the Indian families were not in an affordable position to pay the lakhs for online courses, but during COVID many people paid for these courses hoping for a better future.
But when offline coaching returned, students went back to the routine. - Refund Problems: According to a survey, around 81% of people have faced issues around fees, trust, and transparency. This clearly shows how most companies saw it as a business.
- Product-Market Fit: There are hundreds of courses available in the market, but most of them were actually not needed. There are some exciting ideas that are too ahead of the current scenario, while some don’t even add any value to the user.
Startups are jumping into ed-tech without proper research and competitor analysis, resulting in many startups failing.
As a result, either startups choose the wrong path or many startups get stuck. - High Expenditures: Many Indian Ed-tech companies have invested and poured enormous amounts of money into marketing activities.
They have run a lot of advertisements, and eventually they spent a lot of money for customer acquisitions.
This not only increases the burden, but if you are not spending enough again due to high competition, there are chances of disappearing.
So, instead of focusing on profits and quality of content, many startups have spent on marketing. - Funding dropped: The sector has seen the dip in funding and investor confidence due to the macroeconomic conditions, and there has also been a shift towards the traditional learning methods.
These are some reasons why Indian Ed-tech startups are struggling nowadays. However, the growth projections seem to be positive for the sector.
But what we need to understand is, if you are not creating that interest for the learner, then there is no way left for you to survive in this Ed-tech.
Similarly, if we as learners don’t have interest in what we are doing and learning, there’s no point in paying lakhs.
The only way to get success in education is through the X factor, “interest.”
EdTech didn’t fail because of money or technology. It failed when it forgot about the student. When it focused more on downloads and funding than on helping people truly understand.
But the dream is still alive. It can come back if we remember why we started.
Real education happens when someone feels curious, when someone says,
“Now I understand!”
That’s the moment we should aim for. If we can bring that feeling back not for one or two but for millions, then EdTech can be more than just a business
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