How Digital Education Is Transforming Indian Schools
India has 260 million school-going children in approximately 1.5 million schools — the world's largest formal education system by enrolment. Digital education's penetration into this system has been accelerated by COVID-19 (which forced online learning at scale in 2020–21 but exposed the depth of the digital divide in education) and by a sustained government investment in public digital education infrastructure.
DIKSHA (Digital Infrastructure for Knowledge Sharing) — a national digital learning platform — hosts over 150 crore (1.5 billion) learning sessions; PM eVIDYA integrates DIKSHA with Doordarshan's 200 DTH channels for students without internet; SWAYAM (Study Webs of Active Learning for Young Aspiring Minds) provides online university courses; and the National Programme on Technology Enhanced Learning (NPTEL) delivers engineering courses in partnership with IITs.
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| Representational Image: How Digital Education Is Transforming Indian Schools |
The Byju's collapse —
alongside the retreat of other edtech companies (Unacademy's mass layoffs,
Vedantu's restructuring) — represents the correction of an overcapitalised
sector that grew on investor money rather than sustainable economics.
What You Need to Know
- DIKSHA:
National digital learning infrastructure launched 2017; 150+ crore
learning sessions; content in 36 languages; used by all state governments
for teacher training, curriculum delivery, and examination preparation;
integrated with PM eVIDYA's multi-channel content delivery.
- PM
eVIDYA: multi-channel content delivery including 200 PM eVIDYA DTH TV
channels (one per grade + subject combinations), internet platforms,
radio, and community radio; designed specifically for students without
internet access; reaches approximately 25 crore students.
- SWAYAM:
MoE's MOOC platform; 1,000+ university courses from 300+ institutions;
credit transfer mechanism allows SWAYAM completions to count toward degree
requirements (up to 40% of courses); approximately 1.5 crore enrollments
since launch.
- NEP
2020 digital vision: National Education Policy 2020 emphasises digital
learning, coding from Class 3, AI literacy, and blended learning models;
its implementation includes Atal Tinkering Labs (Budget 2025 announced
50,000 labs in government schools by 2031), AI education CoE (₹500 crore
announced Budget 2025–26).
- Byju's
collapse: peak valuation $22 billion (2021); insolvency proceedings
initiated 2024; NCLT admitted insolvency petition 2024; Aakash Educational
Services (acquired 2021 for $1 billion) faced separate restructuring;
management conflict, fraud allegations, and financial irregularities
documented; represents the largest edtech collapse globally by valuation.
How It Works in Practice
1. The two-tier digital education system: India's
digital education operates on a two-tier model: public digital infrastructure
(DIKSHA, PM eVIDYA, free Doordarshan channels) for the majority of students in
government schools; private edtech platforms (BYJU'S, Unacademy, Vedantu,
Physics Wallah) for the fee-paying segment. The private segment targets urban,
internet-connected students preparing for competitive examinations (JEE, NEET,
UPSC); the public segment reaches rural students through lower-quality channels.
2. Teacher digital training as the enabler: A digital
learning platform is only as effective as the teacher who uses it; DIKSHA's
teacher professional development modules are a significant component of the
platform — over 20 lakh teachers registered for training. Teacher digital
capability (comfort with tablets, ability to use DIKSHA content, ability to
blend digital with classroom learning) is the binding constraint for public
school digital education quality.
3. Physics Wallah as the survivor model: Among
India's edtech companies, Physics Wallah — founded by Alakh Pandey, who started
on YouTube — achieved financial sustainability through low fees (₹2,000–5,000
for courses vs ₹80,000+ for Byju's) targeting middle-class students preparing
for JEE and NEET. Physics Wallah's success while Byju's collapsed illustrates
the market lesson: affordable edtech with genuine learning outcomes survives;
premium-priced edtech focused on marketing rather than learning quality does
not.
4. CBSE and NCERT digital content: CBSE and NCERT —
India's national curriculum bodies — have digitised textbooks and made them
freely available through DIKSHA and individual websites; NCERT's digital
textbooks can be accessed offline on DIKSHA; this provides curriculum-aligned
content to all students with device access regardless of internet connectivity.
5. The rural-urban edtech gap: An urban middle-class
student in Delhi has Byju's subscriptions, coaching institute videos, Khan
Academy access, and internet-enabled study; a rural government school student
in Bihar has possibly a shared school tablet with DIKSHA content and a PM
eVIDYA Doordarshan channel. The quality gap between these two digital education
experiences is enormous; it mirrors and amplifies the existing urban-rural
educational inequality.
What People Often Misunderstand
- Byju's
collapse does not mean edtech failed: Physics Wallah, NEET and JEE
coaching via YouTube, and government digital education infrastructure all
demonstrate that digital education can provide value; Byju's model —
extraordinary valuations, aggressive marketing, complex financial
engineering — failed, not the concept of digital learning.
- Low-fee
edtech is more relevant for India than premium models: India's median
family income cannot support ₹80,000–100,000 annual edtech fees; the
edtech companies that survive in India are those with price points under
₹10,000 per course; premium edtech was always a small premium market, not
a mass market.
- Digital
education quality depends on teacher quality and curriculum alignment:
Engaging digital content that doesn't align with examination curricula has
limited practical value for students whose life prospects depend on
examination scores; successful edtech platforms in India (Physics Wallah,
DIKSHA) align with curricula and examination patterns.
- SWAYAM's
credit transfer mechanism is significant but underutilised: The
ability to earn university credits through free online courses could
democratise higher education access; only a minority of universities have
implemented the credit transfer system; its potential impact is greater
than its current use suggests.
- The
Atal Tinkering Lab programme is aspirational but
implementation-constrained: 50,000 tinkering labs in government
schools by 2031 is an ambitious target; the preceding programme (10,000
labs) showed implementation challenges including equipment maintenance,
teacher training, and curriculum integration that will need to be solved at
5x scale.
What Changes Over Time
The AI education CoE (₹500 crore, Budget 2025–26) will develop India-specific AI education tools, AI literacy curriculum, and assessment tools for K-12; its output will shape how India's next generation of students learns to work with AI.
The NEP 2020's full implementation timeline
extends to 2030; its provisions on coding, AI literacy, and multilingual
education will progressively reshape India's curriculum.
Sources and Further Reading
- Drishti
IAS — Digital India 10 Years: https://www.drishtiias.com/daily-updates/daily-news-analysis/10-years-of-digital-india
- PSA
— AI education: https://www.psa.gov.in/ai-mission-initiatives
- ORF
— Decade of Digital India: https://www.orfonline.org/research/a-decade-of-digital-india-mission-achievements-gaps-and-the-way-forward
- Insightsonindia
— Digital India: https://www.insightsonindia.com/2025/07/02/10-years-of-the-digital-india-initiative/
- PIB
— Budget 2025-26 announcements: https://pib.gov.in