The coronavirus pandemic forced schools across the country to conduct online classes for their students. This led to a rise in children using edtech apps. According to a survey by an edtech startup Countingwell, most children have adapted to use their edtech apps without needing parental involvement.
It said that nearly 81% of parents, who participated in the survey, said that their children studied from dedicated apps all by themselves, without any need for reminders.
Among the participants, 47% of parents also said they were not involved in their child’s learning app usage at all.
“The findings vindicate the ease of use and learning enabled by specialized pedagogy developed by apps like Countingwell,” Nirmal Shah, Co-founder of Countingwell, said.
The survey was conducted via telephonic interviews. It included 365 parents of school-going children who use at least one educational app. The firm also interviewed parents on how their children spent their daily time on education as well as on social media apps or general entertainment.
Despite staying at home, the majority of school children avoided spending a lot of time on social media apps, with 67 percent of parents confirming that their child spent an hour or less daily on these apps. Separately, 74 percent said their child spent less than 90 minutes every day on entertainment.
YellowClass CEO Anshul Gupta said that this is logical as the solution is simple and self-serving, adding that edtech platforms have be engaging and interesting enough to hold kids’ attention over a period of time.
“At the same time, it is a big ask of parents to leave their regular work and sit with kids for classes every time,” Gupta said, adding that 83% of kids attend classes without adult supervision on the platform.
The survey also noted that contrary to school timetables, children spent lesser time attending the online classes with only 36 percent of parents confirming that their child attended the class for more than two hours on a daily basis. Around 42 percent parents said that their child attended classes for an hour or less of time daily.
On the other hand, 49 percent of respondents said that their child studied via a dedicated app for more than an hour daily. Both online classes and apps were found equally engaging with 36 percent and 35 percent of respondents agreeing respectively.
