In the mid-2010s, Bangladesh’s EdTech sector began its journey with the potential to bring revolutionary changes to the country’s education system. In a short span, new institutions started emerging in various segments, such as secondary and higher secondary education, university admission exams, IELTS, GRE exam preparation, competitive job preparation, and skill development. Notably, platforms like 10 Minute School (22 – 2M, 23 – 5.5M) and Shikho (22 – 4M, 23 – 900K) raised the largest amounts of funding in the EdTech sector of Bangladesh in 2022 and 2023. Following this, more than 300 EdTech companies are currently operating in the country. However, apart from these two companies, many other institutions in Bangladesh’s EdTech sector have not been able to scale their operations significantly, and several have already been forced to shut down their activities.
Overview
Before 2000, EdTech was almost non-existent in Bangladesh. From 1997, there was a program on computers aired on BTV, and around 2009-2010, popular guidebooks began including additional question banks on CDs. Udbhas, a coaching center, distributed recorded lecture classes on CDs to its students. These were early examples of using technology in education beyond the traditional education and coaching center-based system. What we understand as EdTech today started in Bangladesh around 2012 with the emergence of Onnorokom Pathshala. However, the true pioneer in popularizing EdTech in the country was 10 Minute School, which began its journey in 2014, led by Ayman Sadiq. Following its success, platforms like Shikho, Bohubrihi, EduHive, Interactive Cares, Programming Hero, Sohopathi, eShikhon, Repto, Yoda, Ostad, and many more entered the market. According to Tracxn, by February 2024, over 300 EdTech platforms were operating in Bangladesh. These platforms serve various segments, including secondary and higher secondary education, university admissions, IELTS, GRE exam preparation, BCS and bank job preparation, and skill development. With the diversity in subjects, some platforms offer pre-recorded courses, while others provide live classes, quizzes, exams, problem-solving support, and job placements to aid students’ learning.
The best time for EdTech companies in Bangladesh was during the pandemic. As everything came to a halt, EdTech platforms became a new solution for parents looking for ways to continue their children’s education. As a result, these companies experienced faster growth, which attracted domestic and international investors. This led to several startups, including Shikho, 10 Minute School, Upskill, Eduhive, and ROOTs Edu, raising funds. To date, 10 Minute School has raised over $7.5 million, while Shikho has raised approximately $6.5 million. However, from 2023 onwards, there has been growing concern about the future of EdTech in Bangladesh among startup and industry stakeholders. This is particularly in light of the drastic decline in the valuation of India’s biggest EdTech, Byju’s, from $22 billion to $200 million, as well as massive layoffs at Byju’s, Unacademy, and other EdTechs, and the reduced rate of fundraising in the sector. Although Bangladesh’s EdTech companies have not yet faced massive layoffs or CEO resignations like their Indian counterparts, they are struggling to raise new funds to open offline learning centers or exam centers, all of which indicate the struggles faced by EdTech companies in the country. But why are Bangladesh’s EdTech companies struggling?
Why Are They Struggling?
Although there were only a handful of coaching centers in Bangladesh in the 1990s, after 2000, coaching centers began to pop up everywhere. Despite various policies and guidelines introduced in the last decade to reduce students’ and parents’ over-dependence on coaching centers, the growth of coaching centers has not been curbed. In Bangladesh, the main focus for parents and students is achieving good exam results, which is why there is a high reliance on coaching centers. These centers provided guidebook solutions, notes, and various educational materials to help students perform well. Eventually, in 2020, the government legalized the coaching business and enacted an Education Act. In addition to coaching centers, parents hired popular private tutors to help their children excel academically. This sentiment still prevails among most parents in the country. In such a landscape, overcoming the traditional model is challenging for any EdTech company.
The first successful EdTech model in Bangladesh can be said to be 10 Minute School. The company initially targeted the K-12 segment, meaning secondary and higher secondary education. For this segment, the company made numerous YouTube channels and Facebook groups available, offering a wealth of free content and resources. Students could access these resources to learn academic subjects for free. However, for parents and students, the primary goal remained getting an A+ grade rather than genuinely learning from these free resources. Due to this mindset, 10 Minute School began offering live classes, which many other EdTech platforms soon emulated by offering academic courses in a similar way. However, most parents in Bangladesh are still more inclined to spend larger sums of money on coaching centers or popular private tutors rather than paying for a 1,000 to 2,000 taka course on an EdTech platform.
The same is true for university admission exams, IELTS, GRE exam preparation, BCS, bank job preparation, and skill development. After relying on coaching centers and private tutors for a long time, many students face challenges when it comes to self-directed learning. Several EdTech companies have been established to target university admission exams, IELTS, GRE, BCS, and bank job preparation, but most of them essentially operate as online coaching centers. Students primarily enroll in these institutions due to the popularity of individual teachers. While teacher-centric EdTechs may perform well, if those teachers move to another platform or launch their own, the original platform faces a significant threat. In other words, although EdTech companies in Bangladesh initially showed potential for providing a better solution than coaching centers and private tutors, they have either become online coaching centers or continue to operate based on the reputation of individual private tutors. Moreover, the relative ease of setting up such platforms has led individual private tutors and trainers to quickly establish their own platforms. To counter this, EdTech companies must invest heavily in retaining these trainers and onboarding new ones.
Some companies offer courses through pre-recorded videos instead of live classes, but these are often found to be replicated. Most EdTechs in Bangladesh claim that their unique selling proposition (USP) is better-quality courses. In reality, these companies tend to recreate courses already available on global platforms and launch them on their own platforms. They often translate international courses into Bengali without making significant changes or adding additional value. There have even been accusations of course replication against the biggest EdTechs in the country. However, the basic courses these EdTech companies offer can be easily replicated by anyone, and much of the free material is already available for free on YouTube. Most EdTech companies in Bangladesh do not focus on designing courses through proper research or hiring qualified resources for their learning modules. Instead, they try to stay competitive by quickly producing and offering Bengali versions of international courses at a lower price. As a result of these copycat EdTechs, the market in Bangladesh has become oversaturated. With so many players in the market, each company is struggling to achieve a significant market position.
Recently, Ostad raised funds from Shark Tank. Since most EdTech companies in Bangladesh are private, their revenue or profit amounts are not publicly available. However, according to the pitch on Shark Tank, Ostad is one of the top three companies in the country’s skill segment, with a revenue of 7.5 crore taka and a profit of 35 lakh taka last year. If one of the top EdTech companies in the country is generating just 3 lakh taka per month in profit, it gives an idea of the financial performance of most EdTech companies.
In Bangladesh, the total number of students in the K-12 segment from grades 6 to 10 is around 10 million. In 2024, there were over 2 million SSC candidates; each year, nearly 1.5 million students sit for the HSC exams. Additionally, the number of unemployed people in the country is about 2.6 million. Nearly 45% of the country’s total population, or about 75 million people, belong to the 10 to 34 age group. Considering the level of education, unemployment, and age group, Bangladesh’s total EdTech market size, or Total Addressable Market (TAM), is around 75 million. It is not possible for any single company to capture the entire market. Therefore, companies generally define their Service Available Market (SAM), meaning the portion of the total market or customers a company can realistically reach with its products and services. Then, they determine the Serviceable Obtainable Market (SOM), or the portion of the total market that a company is actually serving. If we assume that the potential TAM for Bangladesh’s EdTech market is 70 million, and a company can realistically reach 10% of that, the number of potential customers would be 7 million. From there, if a company aims to serve 1% of the market, its regular customer base would be 70,000. While this may seem small at first glance, realistically, acquiring 70,000 paying customers is not something many EdTech companies can achieve. For example, Ostad has 40,000 registered users.
Most companies in the country need to determine TAM, SAM, or SOM before designing their business model. In most cases, entrepreneurs start their business targeting the TAM. As a result, companies that enter the market with generic, replicated courses and without adding any additional value are unable to capture the market and, at the same time, occupy space that could be taken by promising companies, preventing them from capturing the market they deserve. The growth EdTech companies saw during the pandemic began to decline once coaching centers reopened after everything returned to normal, forcing many to shut down their operations. This is primarily due to their lack of deep understanding of Bangladesh’s education sector and customer behavior. Companies that have managed to diversify their services are doing well. For instance, 10 Minute School has launched books in addition to courses and opened offline learning centers targeting IELTS.
Similarly, Shikho has also adopted the offline learning center model. In the last two to three years, there has been a significant shift in the concept of EdTech. The idea that EdTech is limited to studying through an app at home no longer holds. To stay competitive, EdTech is now moving towards a blend of online and offline learning.
If major coaching centers in the country also expand their services online in addition to offline, what will happen to the fate of so many EdTech companies? What do you think?
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