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The Edtech Leviathan
In June 2021, Google and BYJU’s announced a partnership to provide education services in India. By offering education content gratis and supporting “personalised learning,” Google and BYJU’s see themselves as facilitating the transition from the traditional brick-and-mortar classroom to a virtual learning space, potentially benefiting millions of Indian students during and beyond the pandemic. Examining the implications of this tie-up, in the context of commercialisation of education and the increasing concentration of power with monopolistic corporations, it is argued that private platforms in the unregulated edtech sector are incentivised to prioritise growth above all else and their programmes are sharply opposed to the socially transformative aims of education.
The term “personalised learning,” also seen as student-centred learning or context-adaptive learning, is sold as a technologically inflected alternative to the flawed “one-size-fits-all” approach of traditional school education. As a counterpoint to this idea, we will critically assess the ways in which the implementation of artificial intelligence-driven personalised learning models could adversely affect learning and the education system. Additionally, we will look into how the platformisation of education and its venture capital funding could have serious implications on keeping education as a not-for-profit public service.
Platform Power
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