The current year will never be forgotten by those that are experiencing it. A global pandemic, on a scale never seen before, has caught humanity completely off guard. As such, every single facet of life has been disrupted and we have had to adapt in unimaginable ways. Due to lockdowns and social distancing norms, even some of the most essential activities have been halted.

Education, for instance, has seen the worst disruption in human history with over 1.6 billion students being affected worldwide. However, thanks to the presence of e-learning solutions millions of students around the globe are able to continue with their education. In fact, e-learning is perhaps one of many sectors that have seen growth during these testing times.

The State of E-Learning Before The Pandemic

It is a well-known fact that the old methods of teaching and learning had become obsolete a very long time ago. And even though we have had the technology to modernize the education sector for almost a decade, adoption had been slow before the pandemic.

However, that is not to say that there was no adoption at all. In fact, prior to the pandemic, the eLearning industry had been growing slowly but steadily. Parents, students, and teachers alike had begun equipping themselves with eLearning solutions For example; institutions like Coursera.org, Unacademy.com, FutureLearn.com, White Hat Junior, and many more had been increasingly gaining a foothold over the education market.

According to Technavio, the value of the eLearning market in 2019 was USD 114.66 billion. That is a huge number, but compared to the overall market size, that is a drop in the bucket.

 Impact of COVID-19

In the COVID-19 era, e-learning has received a massive boost as the need of the hour is to give students the ability to study from anywhere and anytime. This is so that they can study in a safe environment away from the risk of exposure to the virus. Another reason why students are shifting to eLearning is because of the implementation of technologies like AR and VR that make learning interesting, a lot more fun, and improves the students’ online experience.

Also, many people are using their free time during the lockdown to learn new skills and gain new knowledge with an expectation that will make them more marketable once normalcy resumes.

One other factor that has influenced growth in the e-learning sector is the increased access to broadband and WiFi. A lot of people have signed up for broadband services for the first time or have started using smartphones and tablets. This is especially true of emerging nations.

The e-learning industry is expected to grow by more than USD 70 billion in the next five years. But the actual growth could be much larger if educational institutions throughout the world embrace the new normal in the educational sector. COVID-19 has initiated the biggest shift in humanity’s history forcing not only the education sector to have an online presence but businesses as well.