UpGrad Sees 50% Surge In Learners Amid Covid-19 As Colleges Remain Closed

With schools and colleges downing their shutters as a precautionary measure against the Covid-19 pandemic, many edtech companies are seeing a surge in traffic of online learners. In fact, upGrad has recorded a 50% surge in learners since the first week of March.

According to Founder & MD of upGrad Mayank Kumar, the company used to get 2,500 enquiries a day until March this year. This went up by 50% to 3,800 enquiries per day today.

What is more, the higher education platform says that data science and digital marketing have emerged as top choices among users during this time.

The spike in these numbers can largely be attributed to the company opening its feature ‘upGrad Live’ to all college students for free. Moreover, with educational institutions closed, students are flocking to edtech platforms as an alternative.

This has put a spotlight on the potential of online education.

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Edtech Surge During Covid-19

Edtech platforms are witnessing an uptick in enrollment and queries for courses since March, with most colleges remaining closed in places affected by Covid-19. This period has also seen a significant rise in Google Trends for online classes as well.

This may be because more people are online as they remain home amid the lockdown, thus, amplifying the number of online learners.

While course selection may vary across platforms, short-term courses on upGrad, particularly on different aspects of data marketing and data usage (data science, analytics and machine learning) have become popular.

What is more, the completion rate for such courses have also witnessed growth. 
Like upGrad, even Byju has also reportedly witnessed a 60% increase in new learners within seven days of free access to its platform.