India’s growing emphasis on digitizing infrastructure is no longer limited to essential services. From e-commerce to governmental infrastructure, the country increasingly relies on digital systems, streamlining the efficiency of the process. This paradigm shift also leads to thousands of new jobs, highlighting the importance of tech education for the youth.
While tech education remains a broad term, the emergence of new digital technologies like Artificial Intelligence (AI) and Machine Learning (ML) is spearheading the shift among aspiring learners. In 2022, over 12 lakh undergraduate Indian students enrolled in computer science engineering. However, the emergence of EdTech platforms in India indicates that the total number of learners in digital tech education remains significantly higher. With IT emerging as one of the preferred employment destinations for Indians, a sector that employed more than 50 lakh professionals in March 2023, learning emerging technologies like AI and ML offers a constructive career option for thousands of aspiring students. Additionally, India’s rapid internet penetration adds millions of new users every year, enhancing the overall requirement for supportive tech infrastructure, which is a catalyst for digital technology-driven jobs for the country’s massive job aspirants.
Furthermore, since the Goods and Services Tax was introduced by the Government of India, the comprehensive usage of digital technologies has skyrocketed considerably in the business space. As millions of Indian businesses operate within digital mediums, emerging new technologies like AI and ML significantly boost general business operability. The G20 meeting in 2023 also deliberated India as the global champion of digital public infrastructure. This aspect again stresses transforming tech education, especially with AI and ML, to sustain this push.
Accessibility
The first and most important aspect of transforming the state of tech education in India requires authorities and industry stakeholders to address the accessibility challenge. While the rising internet penetration and subsequent digital learning process are becoming more prevalent, accessibility remains a key issue in India’s larger education domain. Bringing students from diverse socio-economic and linguistic backgrounds under an umbrella can address this challenge while establishing a robust supply of talented individuals in India’s digital tech space. AI and ML can act as the catalyst to supplement this process through strategic integration with digital learning platforms, streamlining the learning process, acting as data banks and numerous other aspects.
Transforming the existing tech education in India remains a multidimensional process that industry stakeholders and government authorities are addressing from the grassroots levels. India’s National Education Policy (NEP) stresses the need to integrate new-age technologies to modernize and future-proof curriculums, while industry constituents, primarily EdTech companies, are using these technologies to create innovative course modules, large language models (LLMS), smart tutoring systems, adaptive learning platforms, automating generation of study materials and performance monitoring. All these aspects create a united front to revolutionize how tech education is perceived in India, enhancing accessibility challenges irrespective of location, language and other barriers. This paradigm shift is an era-appropriate move, as the more prominent Indian education sector is expected to grow significantly to $225 billion by 2025.
Future-Proofing Tech Education
The existing state of tech education in India is an extension of a centuries-old colonial education system with an outdated objective. However, with India witnessing a considerable paradigm shift to cater to digitizing efforts across sectors, digital tech education is in flux about establishing a potent supply line of talented individuals. For example, the country’s digital engineering services are expected to attain a market capitalization of $100 billion by 2025 — with companies struggling to find trained employees in new-age technologies, with upskilling becoming the driving factor for employee’s career growth. Furthermore, the advent of Industry 5.0 is leading to an emphasis on digital engineering, thus on tech education for India’s considerable student population, and learning or upskilling in disciplines like robotics, cloud, data science, AI, and ML is becoming more imperative than ever.
These challenges can be strategically addressed by integrating innovative technologies like AI and ML into the learning system. From digital personalized learning to creating AI-powered data, banks can act as critical enablers of this shift, helping students to learn complex disciplines with innovative iconographies, audio-visual content, learning management systems (LMS) and methodical pedagogy. Relying on AI and ML to future-proof the learning process is no longer optional but an era-appropriate move that uniquely positions Indian talents against global peers while also future-proofing the state of tech education in India. Some of the premier Indian institutions have been pioneers in this aspect, where significant research to develop supportive technologies about AI and ML, such as computer vision, NLP, and others, are helping students to gather cutting-edge knowledge. However, the absolute pinnacle of this comprehensive transformation has yet to be addressed and will be driven by AI and ML in the coming years.
