Written by: Mr. Vimal Venkatram, Country Head of Snowflake India
Smart data analysis and data intelligence can provide education with the opportunity to become more engaging and fruitful in performance and delivery. It creates the possibility for institutions to maximise learning objectives and offer high-quality education that is meaningful and ensures consistent personal development. India has one of the largest higher education systems in the world, that stands second in terms of the higher education network, comprising of over 1000 universities and more than 42,000 colleges. To explore the true potential of its vastness, it is crucial that institutions resolve certain challenges at the heart of the education landscape by exploring the benefits of data analysis.
Need for a reliable and cost-effective platform with accelerated analytics for education
Insufficient access to technology and modern data cloud platforms is widening the existing gap between public and private educational institutions in India. By accessing and sharing valued information with students, fellow educators, broader networks, and partners in real-time, institutions can unlock optimum utilisation of resources and higher productivity beyond mere quantitative expansion.
To transform learning, institutions must be open to exploring new data sources and mediums of knowledge while simultaneously developing the ability to better manage the huge volumes of data generated through these new tools and channels. Comprehensive data analytics empowers students and researchers to extract critical insights and power learning excellence and collaboration. Several routine operations can be accelerated and automated, creating value-for-money at every stage of the education process.
Performant, concurrent, and flexible teaching mechanisms driven by data and AI
For several years, educators have been facing challenges in managing large amounts of student data and learning content physically. Also managing diverse student needs calls for the capacity to carry out ad-hoc, fast analysis, secure data back-ups, and enable seamless global data access.
A resilient data infrastructure and powerful data-warehousing capabilities over the cloud can cater to these requirements and ensure that educators are not over-burdened and can spend time on high value
activities rather than routine data administration or maintenance issues. This also contributes to retaining skilful teachers and providing them with deserving growth opportunities.
Streamlined data analytics and its application to gauge human behaviour and preferences will enable institutions to create and leverage adaptive learning tools, explore game-based models and visual learning environments across different levels. It prepares educators to study test results, develop personalised learning strategies and nourish each student’s unique requirements, empowering them to chase their intrinsic areas of interest.
Establishing a culture of data-driven teaching, lesson planning and measurable outcomes also enable educators to create sustainable value for students by delivering a deeper understanding of concepts, purposeful learning centred around students, and increasing knowledge by going beyond unproductive, traditional rote learning practices. This transforms the way students access and absorb learning outcomes, caters to individual learning competencies, and encourages them to explore dynamic career opportunities early in their learning journey.
Equipping students with the right skill sets and driving institutional success
With an organised overview of structured and semi-structured data, teachers are in a better place to implement improved lesson strategies that are beneficial and interactive. Teachers can then equip students to connect the dots across different courses and increase student performance by supporting their needs on a timely and consistent basis. Underpinned by an improved and reliable system, teachers can minimise achievement gaps over time, based on social and income backgrounds leading to increased education equality by creating a fair playing field for all students. Data-driven decision-making in classrooms and outside in such a manner supports institutions to accomplish important goals as outlined by reforms in The National Education Policy 2020 along with the goals of inclusivity and equitable quality education as aimed by the UNICEF for India.
By investing in expert data management platforms, institutions can exceed competitive standards, record best practices that generate results, and improve governance with easy processing and avoidance of administrative bottlenecks. This presents them with higher visibility to plan budgets, donor outreach, and prospective student engagement programs, driving limitless scale and institutional success.
High-quality education not only improves the calibre of human capital by instilling the right skills and confidence, and widening the rate of employment but also contributes to the individual’s personal growth. With advanced data analytics carving the way forward for education in India, educators can successfully leverage a targeted approach to overcome key challenges and bolster the foundation for an innovative tomorrow.
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