Is Online Teaching a Viable Career Option Today?

We live in a time of rapid change. A new set of challenges, opportunities, and innovations push us towards expanding our horizons every day. Ever since the global pandemic Covid-19 disrupted our lives, many wonderful innovations were brought about by tenacious human effort. The teaching industry is a great example of how rapidly we adapted ourselves to keep the education system in order, in wake of the pandemic. In a span of fewer than 2 years, the online teaching industry has grown manifold, and teaching online on an app for teaching online is the only medium through which educational institutions are functioning seamlessly even in the lockdown. Many teachers who lost their jobs or freshers willing to kickstart their career in teaching often wonder about the manner in which they should go about their teaching journey- online or offline? Is online teaching a viable career option today? We will try to clear the air around this question posed by many, through logical arguments based on statistics and observations… 

First off, the students of today are digital natives. They are accustomed to using technology and mobile phones. Also, the pandemic has stayed with us for a long time, and the decision to reopen educational institutions still seems far-fetched. According to research, it takes 66 days for a behavior to become automatic. So, at this point we may be pretty sure that a large number of students prefer e-learning over traditional classroom learning.  But, it’s not always up to students to decide, is it? Even, the government in its New Education Policy, 2020 has focused on expediting the development of online teaching infrastructure in the country. When implemented as proposed, the new education policy will focus on the development of e-learning infrastructure in schools and universities, encourage the development of numerous teacher app for providing education to a humungous student population across the nation. So, it is pretty certain that Indian Education System will pivot towards following a more open and remote teaching paradigm in the coming time. 

Online teaching is also a game-changer for freshers willing to start a career as a teacher, who possess the knowledge and skills to teach but lack the requisite qualifications and experience which educational institutions demand. Online teaching is a great equalizer in this way that it provides each individual teacher with the same set of opportunities that they can explore and the only thing that matters is how well you can teach and connect to students and not how many fancy degrees you have. Apart from working as an employee for an educational institute or owning your own online teaching business, Freelance online teaching through the best app for online teaching is a great way to earn money and some of the most well-known online teachers today in India, are freelancers. Also, all that’s required to begin your journey as an online teacher is a laptop, a good internet connection, and a good teacher app. Some good online teaching apps provide features of online teaching through mobile and impressive features like digital whiteboards along with it, to simplify teaching through a mobile phone. Online teacher training is also simple, doesn’t take long, and is very affordable. You can also easily take up courses for teachers online. 

Another strong indicator of the viability of an online teaching career is the growth that India’s ed-tech industry has achieved in the past decade or so. Today, there are over 4000 ed-tech startups in India, more than 400 of which were founded in the last two years alone, owing to the increasing demand for online teaching since the pandemic. According to a joint report by KPMG and Google, the online teaching industry will grow by 9X to about $2 billion in 2021 from the base year 2016. Well recognized online tutors earn anywhere between Rs. 300-1000 per hour, with many online teaching platforms paying Rs. 500-600 per hour and around Rs. 25,000 per month. Many well-established teachers are earning upwards of Rs. 60,000 per month by just teaching for 5 hours. Thus, it can be a very fruitful career, even more so than offline teaching once a teacher has some experience under his belt. 

In light of the aforementioned information, it is clear that online teaching can prove to be a profitable and fulfilling career owing to numerous benefits like ease of online teaching through mobile, flexibility, sufficient options for freshers as well as the government’s inclination towards e-learning and the projected growth of the ed-tech industry in coming years.