Most children use edtech apps on their own

As a majority of schools across the country are currently forced to schedule online classes for their students amid the pandemic, most children have adapted to use their edtech apps without needing parental involvement, says a new report.

According to a survey by an edtech startup Countingwell, as many as 81 per cent of parents interviewed said that their children studied from dedicated apps all by themselves, without any need for reminders. Among the participants, 47 per cent parents also said they were not involved in their child's learning app usage at all.

"The findings vindicate the ease of use and learning enabled by specialized pedagogy developed by apps like Countingwell," Nirmal Shah, Co-founder of Countingwell, said in the survey, conducted via telephonic interviews that included 365 parents of school going children who use at least one educational app.

The survey also interviewed parents on how their children spent their daily time on education as well as on social media apps or general entertainment.

Despite staying at home, the majority of school children avoided spending a lot of time on social media apps, with 67 per cent parents confirming that their child spent an hour or less daily on these apps.

Separately, 74 per cent said their child spent less than 90 minutes every day on entertainment.

Contrary to school timetables, children have also spent lesser time attending the online classes with only 36 per cent parents confirming that their child attended the class for more than two hours on a daily basis. 42 per cent parents also noted that their child attended these classes for an hour or less time daily.

On the other hand, 49 per cent respondents said that their child studied via a dedicated app for more than an hour daily. Both online classes and apps were found equally engaging with 36 per cent and 35 per cent of respondents agreeing respectively.