4 Irrefutable Reasons Why OPMs are Important in Latin America
The Latin America region, including the Caribbean (LAC), has more than 180+ million learners across 33 countries in various levels of education, such as primary, secondary, and tertiary. On top of this, LAC is currently home to around 300+ million job seekers and workers leaning towards the upskilling and reskilling tracks while competing in a highly challenging regional economy.
After a decade of dedicating their focus and resources to the Educational Technology (Edtech) sector in LAC, projections show that for the past 12 months, they have been expanding and showing potential for scaling and internationalization. With over 1,500 edtech startups and companies creating around 4,500 jobs, they’ve also attracted approximately $1B worth of investments in the last ten years.
The ongoing socio-economic crisis could affect these projections and potential, with LAC still being one of the lowest-performing education systems worldwide with a chronic skill gaps problem. In other words, edtech and edtech startups have a significant role in leading this region’s transformation.
Here are key reasons why online program management (OPM) systems can help find progressive solutions for the LAC region.
Offers Platforms for Collaboration and Growth
The social, cultural, and economic fabric of countries is intricately woven into their educational systems. For persistent, tangible change to occur in the educational systems, all stakeholders — from the government to technological solutions, teachers, parents, businesses, and institutions — must collaborate.
Partnering with an experienced edtech startup or company can increase a higher institution’s avenue for collaborating with stakeholders. OPMs benefits are not limited to streamlining your team’s upskilling and reskilling path. Not only can OPMs open doors for marketing and recruiting practices, but they can also set your company up as an equal opportunity-friendly learning environment that doesn’t discriminate across the different sectors of society. Motivating learners to pursue lifelong learning is also easier without the added stresses of a rigid curriculum.
Ability to Form Policies and Programs Backed Up by Data
When creating educational policies and programs, it is essential to use data to guide decisions at every step. Through this, organizations can benefit from finding new solutions to problems guided by pooled resources and data from the economy, labor sector, higher institutions’ performance, and learning metrics.
Big data transforms how students learn, and various digital classroom tools alter how facilitators interact with their learners and trainees. By utilizing data in the learning process, it’s possible to focus on learners’ experiences, learning outcomes, and the efficiency and level of their learning. OPMs can help determine what a student is mastering or not mastering since data helps predict and analyze learning behavior, which can help solve the skill gaps and focus on the reskilling and upskilling processes.
Attracts Investors and Promotes Partnerships
To support the rapid acceleration of education, governments worldwide are exploring public-private partnerships and collaborating with investors and technology businesses. In the LAC region alone, around $500M was invested in edtech startups and companies in 2021. With this substantial amount edtech venture capital, both regional and global investors can see the massive potential edtech means for the growth of the economy and educational sector. As the workforce is becoming the leading investor in LAC edtech, this demonstrates the region’s need to solve the skill gaps, which can hopefully be fixed with upskilling and reskilling.
Builds Bridges for Skills-Based Learning and Lifelong Learning
The ability to effectively design and deliver results digitally through people and infrastructure is essential to any digital transformation. The good news is that digital assets, such as OPMs and MOOCs, have a proven track record in improving the learning process. On top of user-generated content, which ramps up learning engagement, learners and trainees no longer have to limit themselves to passive lectures, especially with how much audiovisual content (or content that speaks to all five senses) can benefit them more.
No one indicator can help you identify the effectiveness and quality of OPMs. The educational sector, especially those involved in the workforce’s training and development, has plenty of stakeholders and metrics for consideration. So, generally, a mixture of results can ultimately show how effective an edtech program or policy is. Completion rates, satisfaction, grades, and of course, later employability all point out how significant the role of OPMs is in society’s growth. Discover how research can help your company or university take advantage of edtech to achieve lifelong learning.
