Digital Trends in Education–2022 Investment Plans Address Talent Shortage and Remote Learning

Frost & Sullivan has identified that the education vertical is ripe for digital transformation and adoption of modern communications and collaboration technologies to improve operational efficiencies, improve instructor performance and enhance students’ experience. COVID-19 unmasked this sector’s lack of preparedness to address the sudden need for social distancing. From remote classes to mass communications, education organizations made significant efforts to maintain operations and engagement. With students back in classrooms as the pandemic becomes more contained, other issues have come into play. The great resignation, inflation, the desire for a work-life balance, and a rise in worries around sustainability create a need to move towards remote capabilities and flexible schedules. Ensuring equity in education has always been a challenge, but the pandemic revealed serious gaps in reaching low-income families or students with learning differences. Lessons over video were ineffective for students who didn’t have the equipment, the space in their homes, or the bandwidth necessary to stay online. Children with learning differences such as ADHD (attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder), autism, or dyslexia had a tough time focusing on, understanding, or retaining lessons on video. Before the pandemic, educators were being challenged by progressive citizens. As AI and automation continue to improve at performing human job functions, the types of jobs available will shift rapidly, requiring more students to graduate with better analytical, collaborative, and creative capabilities. As technologies became pivotal for education, ensuring security on digital devices became crucial. The safety of children is always a top concern for all. From sharing personal information (like where they live) to strangers showing up in class on a Zoom call created the need for a closer look at security protocols. Digital technologies, including CX and communications and collaboration solutions, and programmable platforms, must be leveraged as key enablers of accelerated and effective transformation within education organizations. In order to properly apply programmable communications and other digital technologies to address education organizations’ particular needs, a clear understanding of the processes and workflows and their chokepoints are required. There is a wealth of data about students that can be used to help students learn better by customizing their lessons and personalizing the support they need with analytics solutions. This study provides Frost & Sullivan’s perspective on communications and collaboration and CX technology in the education industry across any country and world region. It identifies how conferencing/meetings and collaboration, UCaaS, CPaaS, CCaaS, and CX solutions deliver value in this vertical and how education providers use these technologies to improve their student and educator experiences. It also includes a customer perspective based on a global survey conducted in January 2022 of 80 IT decision-makers in the education industry. Author: Alpa Shah