How Eduluk makes the search for schools and institutions easy
This Delhi-based edtech startup is a discovery and analytics platform for schools and institutions.
The exponential growth of internet has made information available at the click of the mouse. But when it comes to reliable information on schools and higher education, it is surprising how little the scenario has changed over the past decade.
In 2012, when Manu Mital was looking up schools to admit his son Bhavy in grade 11, he could find no reliable information on the internet to help him with his search for the right school. Manu was both disappointed and intrigued by the situation. Further interactions with students and parents made him relate to their difficulties in finding an authentic source of information in the education segment.
Realising the need for a platform that could bridge this gap, Manu (51) founded Eduluk in 2016.
A discovery platform for K-12 and higher educational institutions, Eduluk claims to be an integrated one-stop solution for education data. Its tech-enabled platform allows users to search for schools and institutions. The end users are mostly parents, students, members of institutions, government, and educational boards.
Manu has a graduate degree in Science (B.Sc.) and a master’s degree in Management (MBA) from the University of Allahabad. He co-founded Eduluk with his wife Shalini Mital (49) and the duo have two children. Shalini has a PhD in Child Psychology and was an Associate Professor at Banasthali University and Lingaya’s University.
How does Eduluk work?
Eduluk provides a simple search process. Institutions can be searched on the basis of states, districts, and geographical location. One can refine the search results based on various parameters to get focussed and accurate results.
The information is provided based on 134 parameters such as infrastructure, facilities, class information, location, the category of institutions, student details. This information gets updated annually.
Every stakeholder – parent, student, management, teacher, and policymakers — can derive benefit from the platform.
Parents can explore details of institutions for making an informed decision regarding their kids’ admissions. One can also give one’s feedback about an institution through a unique review process that reaches the institution’s management and also gets their response.
Students can search for institutions and other relevant details. They can update their profile on Eduluk’s student portal with information about their achievements, progress, and participation in extracurricular activities. Similarly, teachers can also create their profiles on the teacher portal, with updates on their yearly achievements, new degrees, participation in training, publication of papers. The portal can be used by students and teachers alike to give feedback about the institution through the platform’s unique review process. Students can invite friends to be a part of the portal, and also, with time, interact with other students and look for jobs.
In addition, Eduluk makes it possible for alumni to connect with their institution, give feedback through the review process, create an alumni network, and post about jobs and events.
All about analysis
The company tries to bridge the gaps and make information easy to use and comprehend. One can research the data to present informative reports to decision makers.
The analytics features provide institutions, researchers, and the government with data which could be anything based on 1300 parameters. This includes the traffic every school/college’s webpage gets, courses looked for, preferred location, facilities available, etc.
Manu feels fortunate to have co-founded the company with his wife. He says, “We understand each other’s passion and zeal to achieve our business targets.” Besides the founders, Eduluk has a team of five members.
Cockroach strategy
Over a period of time, Eduluk claims to have provided information regarding over 1.5 million institutions under the K-12 segment and 42,000 institutes under higher education segment.
Eduluk plans to break even in the next 12 months. It claims to have over 20,000 visitors of its page on an average daily.
As per Manu, during admissions, the number of visitor exceeds 40,000. He adds, “We are progressively working towards machine learning, big data analytics, predictive analysis to bring a paradigm shift in analysing educational institutions, trending courses, and the migration of people for education.”
Bootstrapped so far, the revenue model is purely based on the advertisement. Eduluk claims to make Rs 70,000 – Rs 80,000 every month. “We would like to call ourselves a cockroach startup. Therefore, we keep our expenses low.”
The way forward
The Census 2011 data says that the number of students in India is a gigantic 315 million.
The education sector in India is over $90 billion and is growing at a healthy rate of 15 percent CAGR. It is estimated that by 2020, India will have the world’s largest tertiary-age population and the second largest graduate talent pipeline globally. Higher education contributes around 60 percent to this sector and is poised for a growth of around 18 percent CAGR. It is safe to say that the transformation of the Indian education industry is happening gradually from traditional brick-and-mortar to digital.
Like Eduluk there is Shiksha, Careers360, Collegesearch.in among others.
Talking about Eduluk’s USP, Manu says, “We are the only portal which focusses on schools and higher education, with the complete listing and depth of information.”
In future, they aim to expand to at least 23 countries in the next five years. Manu says, “We are going to approach various embassies and high commissions for data which accounts for 98 percent of students studying abroad.”
Having collected data from Canada and the US already, Eduluk is positive about its growth in time to come.