Career prospects improving via switch to tech-led services

Tutoring outside of regular school schedules has traditionally been a major part of children’s education

Pham Duc, co-founder of online tutoring startup Marathon told VIR, “The pandemic has accelerated parents’ willingness to adopt online learning solutions, as they started to see actual results from their children. However, the Vietnamese tutor system has been caught flat-footed, unable to provide people with great learning and teaching experiences. This is where Marathon comes in.”

The startup aims to empower its best tutors to teach thousands of students nationwide while providing a small-class atmosphere and personalised guidance. Marathon is responsible for handling the operational aspects of the tutoring business and enabling its partner tutors to teach even more students.

Duc noted that the Vietnamese tutoring market has been fragmented for too long, which gives rise to inefficiencies. For example, conflicts of interest if a teacher teaches at both public schools and opens their own tuition centres can intentionally or otherwise only deliver the best content in tuition classes to encourage students to sign up.

Therefore, organised and venture-backed players like Marathon could offer more transparency and overall reduce the time and effort that students spend on tuition, so they can focus on other activities, he added.

Another homegrown startup, MindX, is delivering high-quality technology education, helping K-12 students develop coding skills while assisting young adults to land jobs in tech companies in Vietnam and Singapore, among others.

As Vietnam’s internet economy rapidly grows, the tech talent shortage in the country continues to worsen. According to government statistics, Vietnam was short of 400,000 IT workers in 2020, and the number is expected to reach 500,000 this year.

Realising that new skills would be required for future work, MindX was born to empower students through skills-based learning and fostering out-of-the-box thinking. “MindX’s value proposition is to teach our students, regardless of their background or age, career-ready skills that enable them to become well-rounded professionals at global tech companies,” said co-founder Ha Nguyen.

Thanks to this vision, MindX has bagged $3 million in its Series A round led by Southeast Asian venture capital firm Wavemaker Partners, Vietnamese investment bank Thien Viet Securities, and a US-based investor. Gender lens investor Beacon Fund also participated with debt funding.

Shuyin Tang, Beacon Fund’s co-founder and CEO told VIR, “From parents to young kids, all are becoming more comfortable learning online. Beyond that, device penetration has expanded rapidly, expanding the potential customer base significantly. As the economy recovers, we expect edtech companies to capitalise on this trend.”

Vietnam’s edtech market has huge potential, with a rapidly growing middle class willing to spend significant portions of their disposable income on education. Beacon Fund is looking for teams that can deliver high-quality educational experiences and exceptional learning outcomes via well-prepared curricula and qualified teachers.

“It is these types of teams who can deliver sticky products with high retention and sustainable unit economics. We have seen that founding teams have to be educators as well as technologists at heart to succeed in this sector,” Tang concluded.

Interest in Vietnam’s edtech market will continue to be high, particularly as more promising companies emerge, Tang noted. “Vietnam has also yet to produce major players in this sector like Ruangguru and Zenius in Indonesia, so investors seem to be looking for opportunities to back similar winners in Vietnam.”

Justin Nguyen, partner of Monk’s Hill Ventures, pointed out that one of the most interesting yet underserved segments in the Vietnamese edtech space is online learning, particularly in technical training and English learning. Vietnam’s online learning market is expected to reach around $3 billion by 2023.

“The country is a particularly attractive market for technical training as it has been solidifying its position as a regional tech hub,” Nguyen said. “Data shows that the salary for tech jobs versus non-tech jobs here is more attractive than in markets such as Indonesia, and technology training like coding boot camps are well-positioned to provide students with new career opportunities to upgrade their lives.”

Another key segment would be online English learning. The challenge with learning English online for many students in Vietnam continues to be the lack of quality feedback during the learning cycle. Online learning platforms that can utilise AI to mimic one-on-one tutoring or help facilitate instructor-learner interactions around active learning, with the user at the centre, will be the ones that can stand out from the pack, according to Nguyen.