Last year saw AI, ML and data science as the flavours of the season. Hari Krishnan Nair lists the trends that ruled this year
The year 2019 was full of developments in the professional education space and upskilling platforms have fared in the bygone months. The key trends witnessed in the space in 2019 are as follows.
Trend 1: Revenue growth of ed-tech companies
The surge witnessed by ed-tech companies in the professional education space, over the last one year is phenomenal. We have seen significant growth over the past one-year with professionals increasingly opting for high-quality up-skilling programmes that can help them achieve career transitions. We generated around `150 crore in revenue in FY19, and expect to achieve a turnover of `400 crore by the end of this fiscal and `1000 crore by FY21.
Trend 2: Freshers opting for courses in Data Science, AI and ML
Industry expectations from freshers have changed drastically over the year. Corporates now want to hire professionals that are well versed in new-age skills like devops, data science, machine learning and cloud. We have seen great demand for our data science programme that is focused on fresh graduates looking to build a career in data science and analytics. Recently, about 60 per cent of our current batch has already been placed with an average salary package of `5.6 lac per annum (85 per cent more as opposed to the usual `3 to `3.5 lac per annum). Several students with one to two years of prior experience have infact even drawn a 100 per cent hike on their salary. This course has helped thousands of professionals to bag better roles and pay packages this year.
Trend 3: Tech companies increasingly partnering with edtech platforms
Re-skill is the current buzzword echoing off corporate walls as companies are driving large scale initiatives among the existing workforce to build a continuous learning culture. Skilling has become a priority for organisations. We have made rapid strides in delivering in-depth and quality pedagogy to the professionals through multiple learning models and are now working with corporates to deliver tailor-made programmes keeping in mind the roles and requirements within the organisation.
The writer is Co-founder, Great Learning