Making Upskilling Affordable and Accessible

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The amount of money it takes to receive a formal education can be intimidating - but a formal education isn’t the only way. Hear from the people learning new skills and building careers through technology. People like Gyan Prakash Mishra, who got a job using an 'education' he paid for after getting a job. We also speak to Prateek Shukla, the co-founder and CEO of Masai school, who tells us about the interesting business model he came up with to overcome the affordability barrier.

Read the transcript here

Utsav: If there’s one thing every Indian family can agree on, it’s that education is key! All of us are raised with the idea that we can change our lives if we do well in school. Now, with the internet in the picture there are more ways to receive an education other than traditional school and college - we’re now beginning to focus more on upskilling and being job ready! In today’s episode, we explore companies that provide courses online and get their students jobs by the end of it. We also talk about how the Next Half Billion have used these services to improve their financial standing with steady, well-paying jobs.

Niv: The Next Half Billion or the NHB are the core of this podcast. They represent the second big wave of internet users in India hence the term “Next”. We define them as the cohort of 500 million first-time internet users that have come online via their mobile phones in five years.

Niv: From a demographic standpoint, they are mainly from the bottom 60% of India’s income distribution. They are owners of small businesses like beauty salons and kirana shops and also blue collar workers, domestic workers, security guards etc. They are building a greater comfort with tech and represent the hustle and ambition of an aspiring India.

Niv: I’m Niveditha, an ex-engineer turned comedian and writer.

Utsav: And I’m Utsav, who also, unsurprisingly, am an ex-engineer turned market researcher, traveler and podcaster

Niv: You’re listening to Smartphone Nation, how the next half billion are shaping their future online. 

Niv: In today’s episode, we tell you how smartphones have helped students in India access job-ready skills faster and easier than ever before.

…

Utsav: I have so much to say on this episode. I work for a tech company and I know how hard it is to find good talent. Even harder is to find a graduate from a college with skills that will actually matter in a job. 

Niv: That’s me! I studied Automobile Engineering but I really learned about it only in the first six months of my job.

Utsav: Oh glad that I am not the only one. I was a mechanical engineer to begin with, but I would have fared miserably had I joined a manufacturing or an automotive company. I feel it’s a very common thing - an education and a skill particular to a job are very different.

Niv: You’re right. But I’d say there’s no shame in learning on the job. That’s how I got into comedy and podcasting. But I’m lucky to have found something else I can make a living off of, as shocked as I am about it myself. 

Utsav: And most people are not privileged like us. Listen to Gyan Prakash Mishra, from Balia, a village on the border of Eastern UP and Western Bihar. He talks about his challenges while trying to study and get a job

Byte 1 (Gyan Prakash Byte 1):

After finishing school, I applied to Allahabad University for B.A. I couldn’t get in so instead I applied to a small college in the village. While I did my B.A. degree, I was also preparing for SSC. I used to coach kids in Allahabad to earn some money, I did that for a year and then COVID happened. (0:35 - 1:11)

Utsav: The pandemic forced Gyan Prakash to return to his village. And this is a story of so many during the pandemic, with people losing access to education and income.

Niv: We went and got a formal education and yet didn’t have the skills but Gyan’s story is different. For him. Not having a skill was an access issue. Most people in India don’t even have the access to a quality education. But that doesn’t take away form the fact that India has a serious job skills problem

Utsav: Absolutely! According to UNICEF, more than 50% of Indian youth is not on track to have the education and skills necessary for employment by 2030. Listen to Sarvesh Kanodia, an investor from Omidyar Network India an impact-focused investment firm, talk about this gap

Byte 2  (Sarvesh Byte 1): 

There was a study by aspiring minds. In the national employment report that they had released, it showed that only 4.6% or so of the job applicants possessed, you know, good coding skills. It also said that 38% of the Indian engineers actually cannot write compilable code. You have large software service companies such as Infosys, TCS, etc., which actually have the wherewithal to train new hires for 6 to 8 months before they place them on production jobs. But even they are looking for more efficient options. On the other hand if you look at companies including start-ups or traditional companies who are now trying to digitize themselves. They need engineers who are experienced and can start from day one. As a result there is more demand for the higher skilled workers while the remaining larger number of lower skilled engineers actually keep looking for jobs, or they get low-end jobs.(3:26 - 3:58)

Niv: Only 25% of graduates working in IT are readily employable. India’s $60-billion outsourcing industry is already spending almost $1 billion a year on getting these graduates ready. That gives colleges a pretty bad name. It’s not as if the industry expects students to code right off the bat, but India Inc’s modest progress in dealing with the problem is what marks the seriousness of the issue. 

Utsav: And even then, it's still not enough. The tech world is evolving rapidly. 6 months ago, a handful of people knew about OpenAI and ChatGPT. Today, it has taken the world by storm, predicting the demise of everything from copywriters to even coders. However, there are a few skills whose demand is only going to rise. Highly-skilled candidates in cloud computing, data science and cybersecurity are already particularly hard to find.

Niv: But there is a light at the end of the tunnel. There are a few people that have identified this gap. And such hard problems need unconventional solutions, which means unheard of business models. 

Byte 3 (Gyan Prakash Byte 2)

A relative of mine told me about Masai school. Initially, I could not believe it. Every other coaching centre asks for the fees first even after which, there is no guarantee. Because of this, Masai’s structure of asking for money after you’re placed seems too good to be true. 2:14 - 2:39

Niv: Gyan Prakash decided to take a shot and applied to Masai School. It targets students who have cleared 12th class or any graduation, and coaches them in software development and data analytics. Their philosophy is simple - with the right training and opportunities, anyone can be job ready. 

Byte 4 (Gyan Prakash Byte 3)

I applied and gave a test. Giving a test was also a problem, so I went to my brother’s house and used his laptop to give the test. There were two rounds of tests and a small interview. By evening, I got a message that I’ve cleared it. While it felt great, I had to figure out how to get a laptop. So I asked my father to get a laptop and we weren’t able to get one on such short notice. I thought that I’ll let it be but then we figured that we could use the Kisaan Credit Card and loan some money. I borrowed 30,000 and bought a Vista laptop for 28,000 rupees and I bought two SIM cards which I recharged.(2:53 - 3:50)

Niv: Today 80% of Masai’s students come from Tier 2 and Tier 3 cities, and over 70% come from a non computer engineering background. Students pay for their course only after they secure a stable job. It’s a win-win situation. Listen to Prateek Shukla, the Co-founder and CEO of Masai School, talk about how this has helped his students in their learning journey.

Byte 5 ( Prateek Byte1)

Sumantha from my first batch, this kid, he started his career as a tractor driver okay? And he started earning right when he was in 8th Standard, to pay his school fees and then he studied in a government college where he paid his college fees as well. When he joined masai, in the first batch, he was a delivery executive in one of the tech startups in bangalore. He came with his shirt completely torn up and completely torn. So this guy came and he basically said I want to become a programmer, I don't have a laptop, I don't have anything but I will become a programmer. So he used to stay in bangalore with 16 other people in a 1bhk apartment and 15 of them were security guards from his own village. He was the only one working as a delivery executive. So this guy for 7 and a half months in the first batch, stayed throughout 7 months in our office. He used to sleep over there, he used to do everything over there. He used to go once to his home to wash his clothes. SO he had only two pairs of clothes, one he used to wear till friday and then he used to go and he used to basically wash and wear another one. This guys is earning close to 18 LPA and the guy is doing amazing with his life.  (28:25 TO 30:50)

Utsav: It’s humbling and inspiring to hear stories like that of Sumanta. This business model is what made Masai so bankable. And Sumanta was not the only one who made a career out of Masai. Gyan Prakash’s story also has a happy ending. As he went through Masai’s curriculum, he found support not only in the teachers, but also from his cohort of peers at Masai. They used to stay up late, studying and solving doubts together, and motivating each other. He went from strength to strength and graduated from Masai. Initially he did not get a job. But then someone from Masai stepped in

Byte 6 (Gyan Prakash Byte 4)

After not getting placed for a month, I asked Anirudh sir. I told him I needed one because I wasn’t in the condition to survive there for another 2, 3 months. He helped me out and got me a job interview which I cleared in the first round itself.

6:15 - 6:40

Utsav: I am so glad that Gyan Prakash Mishra got a job. But I wonder, what about jobs which are outside of tech? Let’s talk about that right after this short break

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Utsav: Welcome back to Smartphone Nation. Tech jobs may be the most coveted ones out there, but wouldn’t India continue to need job ready people in other sectors as well? 

Niv: Of course. Beyond the private sector, there are government jobs which are highly sought after, right?

Utsav: Ah yes, government jobs in India are so coveted that it has led to a hilarious at first, but an equally frightening experience - Groom Kidnapping! Colloquially known as Pakaduah shaadi or Jabaria shaadi, is a phenomenon in the western parts of Bihar and eastern Uttar Pradesh states, more prominent in Munger and Dumka districts.  Eligible bachelors are abducted by the bride's family and later forcibly married, to get men with better education and/or richer men. 

Niv: No way! Are you sure this isn’t a one-off incident that you’re blowing up?

Utsav: I wish I was, but in 2017, official data from the government of Bihar revealed that about 3400 grooms were kidnapped for marriage.

Niv: This is an official statistic? India never fails to surprise me. It's no wonder that coaching for government jobs is one of the largest businesses out there. Just step into Mukherjee Nagar in Delhi, and the place is littered with IAS coaching institutes. But coaching institutes are often   expensive and not exactly accessible to a large population, especially the Next Half Billion. How do you build a subscription model that caters to a population with financial constraints? Here is Sarvesh explaining that -

Byte 4 (Sarvesh Byte 2)

 So you know, when you look at what it takes to build a successful business for NHB, if I were to simplify it, I would put it in two ways, right? One is you have a strong and differentiated value proposition for the customer. And the other is you figure out a viable unit economics to be able to serve this demand. Now, in the case of areas like education and jobs, there is already an inherent propensity for the buyer to pay, including those who are from NHB. Right. And this is driven by their aspiration for a potential change in their career trajectory by using that solution. And the fact that there's a lack of quality offering in the market. What companies have to ensure is that they're focusing on quality and they're able to demonstrate outcomes. Now, the second part, which is how they design a viable business model, there the pricing or the revenue is governed by the value that you are creating for the customer. Now, the choice of whether that payment model is a subscription or a one time, it will depend upon the offering and the pricing that you're asking them to pay. What we do see is that customers are willing to pay when there is a strong value prop for them, including the NHB (30:14 TO 32:11)

Utsav: But what about the state level government jobs? IAS exams are notoriously hard to crack, and only very few get admitted every year.

Niv: This is exactly what Mohammad Hisamuddin or Hisam stumbled upon. Hisam hails from Kerala, and he is the Founder & CEO of Entri, an Indian language learning platform for jobs in India. He started out with a traditional coaching business, but that did not scale, and in this process he discovered something unique

Byte 4 (Hisam Byte 1)

The major insight we had running that particular business, that dashboard for coaching business for two years was. So I personally visited around 150 to 200 coaching institutes across Kerala, Karnataka and Tamil Nadu to do marketing and sales.  And one insight that I first hand saw was basically if there were one institute for engineering and medical entrance exams, there were 100x for these local language government job exams, for spoken English, etc. There were these brick and mortar coaching institutes that used to train them for government job exams and spoken English, all in local languages. So with that insight, we knew that the market was much, much bigger than the engineering and medical entrance exams market. And we quickly experimented with this local language course in Malayalam for Kerala PSU, which is a government body in Kerala that conducts exams for different state government departments in Kerala. So we started with this LDC exam in Kerala and the numbers started growing pretty fast. So we quickly figured out there were like 2 million, that is 20 lakh people taking that exam alone in Kerala every 18 to 24 months, right? Compare that to like around 10 to 15 lakh people that took engineering and medical entrance exams across India every year.

1:40 TO 3:00

Utsav: It’s interesting that Hisam started with coaching in Indian languages right off the bat!

Niv: But it makes sense right? One of the biggest hurdles Indians face in learning is having course material in a foreign language. Most of our syllabus is in English. But it isn’t our native language. I’m not sure how it was for the rest of you, but when I was in college hardly anyone spoke English. It was funny that we had to do all of our coursework in a language that was so foreign, my classmates would make jokes about it all the time. I’d say I had a clear advantage just because I could speak it fluently. Entri has already expanded into 5 Indian languages, with over 1.1 crore registered users, and 4.5 lakh paying users. And like Masai, even Hisam has some inspiring stories to share

Byte 5 (Hisam Byte 2)

 This blind user who used entri using Android feature that helps users apps using voice functionalities. He got rank one in the blind category after using entri.  That was an inspiring story. There was this auto rickshaw driver who cracked a government job exam. While driving auto, he studied for the government job exams using entri app and I think he was placed in the top 100 rank. He got a job. There was this widow with three kids who lost her husband recently and like prepared using entry and got a job. There was this widow with three kids who lost her husband recently and like prepared using entri and got a job.9:19 - 10:00

Utsav: And its not just the entrance exam coaching which Entri provides. They also realise the importance of soft skills, and they run a very popular Hindi se English seekho course. 

Byte 6 (Hisam Byte 3)

 We don't see English as an enemy. Basically I think ultimately people will have to learn English in this world to survive and like to grow in their personal career. We only see Entri, we only enable our users to actually upskill and then also obviously learn English to be prepared. So we're not excluding English. We're not saying, we're not asking our users not to learn English, etc. In fact, one of the top category inside entri is the spoken English category. In fact, I mean the top skilling category inside entry is spoken English coding just recently  So we kind of believe that they'll have to learn, ultimately learn English. But when they have to learn a skill and if they don't know English right now, there's no point in trying to upskill them using English, right? So we want, we're kind of creating that bridge where they can upskill first and then learn English, right? Or like learning English first and then upskill, right? 22:11- 23:14

Niv: One of the things I’ve realised while interviewing people for this episode is that English being an enemy is a very urban way of looking at it. Chandra, who hails from Prayagraj in Uttar Pradesh, is an Entri user, who learned english on the app and started her own coaching class.

Byte 7 (Chandra Byte 1)

3:38 - 4:20

So whatever I had learned from Entri, I would teach the kids around me. slowly, the number of kids increased. and at one point, I was teaching 50 to 60 kids at a time. so then, I decided to open a coaching centre. Very recently, I’ve started teaching English at a college too. I teach the students whatever I learn at Entri. (edited) 

Niv: When I asked Chandra about why people in her village have to learn English thinking it’s probably because they’re being forced to for job opportunities or something, this is what she said

Byte 8 (Chandra Byte 2)

8:25

They have a craze to speak English …

Niv: I love that! I guess English shouldn’t just be seen as a tool to get ahead, it’s also really fun to master a new language. Before we get to the end of the podcast, here is Sarvesh talking about what makes Entri a viable business - 

Byte 9   (Sarvesh Byte 3)

So there is no mass killing player at scale today. You know, if you can actually create opportunities for students across the spectrum of government jobs, private jobs and self -employment, entry actually has the potential for significant impact if they can deliver on the promise, right? So what they've been able to deliver is a very high quality experience through a product which has very deep engagement with its students and it's resulting in positive outcomes.  And as a result, they're actually improving quality learning through an offering which is very affordable across the different income segments and geographies, including the smaller towns and cities where customers don't have a quality offline option. And what they're also doing is leveraging both English and the local language content to enable the first generation learners to also be able to learn in their local language.32:36 - 33:39

Utsav: Absolutely, and it's inspiring to see the aspirations of Young India. From Sumanta who lived in the Masai office for 8 months and earns 18 lakhs per annum today to Chandra, who became an English teacher, and set up her own coaching institute. Whether its jobs with the government or the private sector, smartphones are redefining the way Indians are upskilling and getting job ready. The next half billion are ready and raring to go, and smartphones will get them there.

Utsav: Thank you for tuning in to Smartphone Nation! 

Utsav: I’m Utsav

Niv: And I am Niveditha

Niv: This was Smartphone Nation, tune in next week for another story on how the next half billion are shaping their future online.

VO: You can listen and subscribe to Smartphone Nation on the IVM Podcasts App, or wherever you get your podcasts. This podcast is also available in Hindi and Tamil. A special thanks to Omidyar Network India for making this season possible.To know how ONI is partnering bold and purpose-driven entrepreneurs who are working to improve the lives of India’s Next Half Billion, visit omidyarnetwork.in

VO: Tell us what you think of the show, you can find our hosts on Twitter and Instagram. Utsav can be found on Instagram @whywetravel42. You can reach out to Niveditha on Instagram @niv.prakasam. You can follow IVM on Twitter, Facebook and Instagram @IVMPodcasts.