GCC Insight: EDUCATION INVESTMENT IN THE POST-PANDEMIC ERA

Abstract

As the pandemic life recedes, online learning has become a social norm. Many education companies have taken measures to overcome the difficulties of the epidemic. The first is to combine online education with on-site education; the second is to greatly increase income and reduce expenditure.

In this process, although New Oriental’s(Xindongfang) overall revenue has dropped by about 10% than expected during the epidemic, in comparison to their peer groups, New Oriental remains competitive as they suffer the least from financial losses, especially among all other field-based training institutions.

01 Combing OMO model with field learning

Because of this epidemic, education companies had to get familiar with the online teaching system in a constrained time frame. Parents, students, and teachers in China quickly adapted to the new online education technology and teaching mode.

From this, it’s not hard to speculate that the future field of education will no longer remain the same. Its education model will be closely integrated with online education to form a powerful OMO business model (Online-Merge-Offline).

With OMO mode, education will further enhance comprehensive learning. Data analysis will provide students with excellent guidance on learning and revision, while “urgent matters” will lead to rapid reforms in the education sector, making the integration of online and on-the-ground education even more advantageous.

02 Development of Educational Technology

Various platforms for learning and online meetings are vigorously innovated. For example, Nail provides online classes for teachers and students worldwide; Tencent Conference System provides a teaching and meeting platform; New Oriental has developed a cloud classroom, etc.

The application and popularity of artificial intelligence and big data are also reflected in this “urgent affair,” although the cost of this matter is relatively high. Teachers and students repeatedly teach and learn on various platforms, but the pattern of teaching and learning will reduce the cost. In particular, for children from the age of 3 to 10 years old, teachers can focus on the layout of the teaching content of early childhood and elementary school teaching in this stage of teaching; artificial intelligence and the application of big data will play an important role in this regard.

With companies providing more and more platforms, educational technology will be one of the important development direction of future education.

03 Small classes for customized teaching

The education industry is a results-oriented system industry. After this epidemic, parents and schools have experienced the convenience of online teaching; public schools have really realized the significance of the hardware layout and network layout. However, students, parents, and teachers still have a stronger preference for offline small group customized courses.

From experience, small class customized teaching can meet both the individual and communication need to a certain extent. Besides, efficient teaching is one of the long-term core competencies.

04 Education is a long-term process

Mr. Yu Minhong said at the recent past Global Venture Capital Network Conference: “Since the education sector itself is not too affected by economic cycles, I am very optimistic about the development of the education sector in the next two to three years.” And every year, whether there are significant uncertain events or economic fluctuations, the market is equally positive and stable to invest in the education market. Only under the epidemic will the public more fully understand and disclose the risks, increase the dimension of project examination, and raise the threshold of investment consideration, which will positively help the investment in the whole education industry.

Finally, while the epidemic has brought challenges to the education industry, we should also see the future development, and we should take the initiative to seek opportunities in this process when we encounter a crisis.

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References：

Blue Elephant Capital & Sound Network. (2022). Online education ecology report.

Wang, Chao & Gu, Xiaoqing. (2022). The promotion of OMO teaching: Breaking through the online teaching dilemma by using primary and secondary school students’ willingness to participate in online learning as an entry point-an empirical study based on the technology acceptance model. Journal of Modern Educational Technology