Hybrid Education Platforms for Upskilling and Technical Education
Hybrid Education Platforms for Upskilling and Technical Education
Business Model Description
Invest in B2B/B2C hybrid upskilling education platforms to meet evolving labor market needs and provide dynamic and continuous learning opportunities.
TomYo Edtech, established in 2019, is an educational technology company aiming to offer world-class opportunities to youth in developing nations. TomYo's online learning platform has 350,000 users across Mongolia. It operates a hybrid secondary school, online study-abroad support, and upskilling lessons for youth and mid-career professionals.
MeLearn, established in 2019, is a digital platform for early- and mid-career professional skill development. With 100,000 registered users, MeLearn is expanding to become a micro-learning social platform for upskilling. MeLearn's metaver.com is expanding to India and Philippines markets.
Expected Impact
Provide quality education via digital platforms for early and mid-career professionals to enhance employability and skills in the labor market.
How is this information gathered?
Investment opportunities with potential to contribute to sustainable development are based on country-level SDG Investor Maps.
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Country & Regions
- Mongolia: Ulaanbaatar
- Mongolia: Orkhon
Sector Classification
Education
Development need
While Mongolia boasts an impressive rate of literacy at 99 percent and enrollment at 103 percent. World Bank data suggests that learning outcomes aren't commensurate with years of schooling (1) and the quality of human capital in terms of skills does not match labor market needs. (2) Furthermore, the provision of education is largely concentrated in urban areas and does not reach the rural population. (3)
Policy priority
Education Sector Medium Term Development Plan is aligned with Mongolia's sustainable development targets and focus around 5 main objectives: improved pre-school enrollment, quality secondary education, effective vocational education, and improved cohesion with labor market needs. (4)
Gender inequalities and marginalization issues
Mongolia has high rates of education participation and nearly a balanced gender equity, although it has a pronounced ‘reverse’ gender trend in higher education. Tertiary education enrollment is 76 percent for women and 53 percent for men. (3) This, however, does not translate in a similar way as far as the labor market trends are concerned.
Women earn less and young women are less likely to be employed (53.4 percent female vs. 68.3 percent male) (1) and take longer to gain employment than young men. (5)
Investment opportunities introduction
The youth unemployment rate is alarmingly high at 17 percent (20 percent for women, 15 percent for men). (1) It is critical to promote youth employment by bridging the gap between the education sector and the labor market.
Key bottlenecks introduction
Due to the recent global crisis, many financially vulnerable families have reduced their expenditure on activities that they consider non-essential, including education, impacting the overall demand in this sector. (5)
Education Technology
Development need
Share of youth (15-24 years) not in education, employment, or training (NEET) was 19.7 percent in 2020, mostly comprising of women. (1) As per Education Ministry statistics, ~30 percent of higher education graduates were unemployed. This highlights the mismatch between higher education and labor market needs.
Only 46 percent of students in universities and 18 percent of students in vocational education have ICT skills (and important indicators under SDG 4). (6) Survey of 3000 tech companies in Mongolia revealed that software development, internet usage, and foreign language capabilities as some of the most needed skills in the sector. (7)
Policy priority
Ministry of Education commits to a safe, quality, and flexible education system, incorporating lifelong learning opportunities and equal access to digital technologies and are taking extensive measures for digitalization. (8) Government's ten-year development plan seeks to better align the education sector with labor market needs. (9)
Gender inequalities and marginalization issues
While internet usage increased to 66 percent since 2010, the rural population and marginalized people still lack access to the internet and digital devices. (10) Highest-paying STEM jobs, particularly in the ICT (11) sector, are dominated by men. Women are more likely to be in the lower paying jobs due to traditional gender norms.
Investment opportunities introduction
Hybrid upskilling education platform to meet evolving labor market needs and to provide life-long learning opportunities. With the government supporting digital-transition and digital literacy, existing 400,000 users can increase and better benefit from the contents.
Key bottlenecks introduction
While 80 percent of Mongolians have smart devices, 54 percent lack the digital skills to benefit from improved accessibility. (12) This may hinder the acceleration of education technology implementation.
Educational Technology
Pipeline Opportunity
Hybrid Education Platforms for Upskilling and Technical Education
Invest in B2B/B2C hybrid upskilling education platforms to meet evolving labor market needs and provide dynamic and continuous learning opportunities.
TomYo Edtech, established in 2019, is an educational technology company aiming to offer world-class opportunities to youth in developing nations. TomYo's online learning platform has 350,000 users across Mongolia. It operates a hybrid secondary school, online study-abroad support, and upskilling lessons for youth and mid-career professionals.
MeLearn, established in 2019, is a digital platform for early- and mid-career professional skill development. With 100,000 registered users, MeLearn is expanding to become a micro-learning social platform for upskilling. MeLearn's metaver.com is expanding to India and Philippines markets.
Business Case
Market Size and Environment
< USD 50 million
As of January 2022, Mongolia reported 2.16 mn internet users. (13)
Primary target market for businesses is population between 13-45 years (~1.5 million people). Internet penetration rate in Mongolia currently stands at 63 percent. The market penetration rate of digital upskilling platforms stands at 20 percent.
According to the National Statistics Office, Mongolians spent about 6 percent of their household expense on educational services. (14)
Globally, revenue for online education is expected to show an annual growth rate (CAGR 2023-2027) of 9.37 percent. The growth rate is more likely to be higher in developing countries. (15)
Indicative Return
15% - 20%
Based on the profit reported on unpublicized financial reports by businesses cases in this IOA, TomYo and MeLearn.
Investment Timeframe
Short Term (0–5 years)
Based on the profit reported on unpublicized financial reports by businesses cases in this IOA, TomYo and MeLearn.
Ticket Size
USD 500,000 - USD 1 million
Market Risks & Scale Obstacles
Business - Supply Chain Constraints
Capital - CapEx Intensive
Impact Case
Sustainable Development Need
The unemployment rate is 12.6 percent for youth aged between 15-29 years (7 percent in general). As of 2022, ~36,000 people aged 15-29 years were actively looking for jobs, implying 41percent of the total unemployed population and indicating that young people are more vulnerable to unemployment. (16)
While the demand for higher education is rising, higher education institutes are largely concentrated in the capital. Rural students are more disadvantaged due to the rapid rise in the cost of living in Ulaanbaatar. (3)
There is an oversupply of higher education graduates in certain majors (business, law, international relations) and shortages in others, particularly in STEM fields. (17)
Gender & Marginalisation
Despite a growing number of educated young women, their prospects in the labor market remain limited. Only 15 percent of students who graduate each year as ICT professionals from Mongolian Universities are female. Similarly, women are less likely to go into other high-paying jobs. (18)
Expected Development Outcome
Business models under this IOA have the potential to decrease the number of unemployed and underemployed by equipping them with the necessary skill set and training required for integration into the labor force and reskilling people who wish to make career shifts.
Online learning can be accessed by people of all ages across the country. It can help close the skill set and education gap between rural and urban population.
Upskilling platforms create educational content based on market demand. Therefore, it will enable youth to align their learning with the needs of the market.
Gender & Marginalisation
Access to online skilling platforms can help women upskill themselves and enter higher-paying jobs, thereby narrowing the wage gap.
Primary SDGs addressed
4.4.1 Proportion of youth and adults with information and communications technology (ICT) skills, by type of skill
Male - 45 percent; Female - 43 percent (6)
Sustainable Development Vision 2030: Advance the tertiary education system to meet the sustainable development goals and improve the lifelong education system.
5.5.2 Proportion of women in managerial positions
38.9 percent (19)
Ensure equality for the vulnerable groups and increase employment by providing knowledge and education.
8.6.1 Proportion of youth (aged 15–24 years) not in education, employment or training
8.6.1: 19.7 percent
SDV: Promote employment, raise the working-age population’s economic activeness to 70 percent, reduce unemployment rate to 3 percent in the laborforce, and continue increasing the small and medium enterprise support fund to at least 300 billion tugrugs.
Secondary SDGs addressed
Directly impacted stakeholders
People
Gender inequality and/or marginalization
Planet
Corporates
Public sector
Indirectly impacted stakeholders
People
Planet
Corporates
Public sector
Outcome Risks
Excessive screen-time can lead to several issues such as social isolation and eyesight problems. Old fashioned employers may not recognize online learning certificates as qualifications, and prefer formal education-based degrees.
If not implemented carefully, online courses may widen the skill gap between people with digital access and those without.
Students with low levels of ICT skills will require additional training on the usage of the platform. The burden of educating such population falls on the businesses.
Gender inequality and/or marginalization risk: Subscription fees may exclude low-income individuals from accessing the platforms and worsen inequality in education.
Impact Risks
Increasing inequality due to the unequal distribution of resources can hamper the regional progress of such models, resulting in the concentration of operations in more developed areas.
Without proper quality control measures in place, students may not receive standarized high-quality education which they need to succeed.
Gender inequality and/or marginalization risk: Making online courses accessible to students with hearing and visual disabilities can be costly. Therefore, these students are likely to be excluded.
Impact Classification
What
Efficient and effective digital platforms offering interactive learning to improve the quality of education and employability.
Who
Various. Users benefit from easily accessible education content, training centers and trained instructors. Employers benefit from better professional development of employees.
Risk
Certifications obtained from such models may not be largely accepted; regions with better digital infrastructure will benefit over remote areas with less development.
Contribution
Skilled employees are twice as likely to be employed and make 85 percent more than those who are not skilled. (22) On the other hand employers are reporting skill shortage. (23)
How Much
ADB estimates suggest that removing gender inequality in Mongolia could lead to a 0.5 percentage point increase in the country's annual per capita growth rate. (20)
Impact Thesis
Provide quality education via digital platforms for early and mid-career professionals to enhance employability and skills in the labor market.
Enabling Environment
Policy Environment
The education sector's mid-term development plan focuses on education quality and digital transition. Any usage of digital technology is encouraged throughout education. (4)
Mongolia's 5-Year Development Guideline 2021-2025 and Action plan includes plans to create opportunities to support lifelong learning for citizens of all ages by developing e-learning platforms, e-training programs, e-content and e-lessons. (24)
Mongolia's 10 year development plan's human development goal is to prepare human resources that can meet labor market demand. (25)
Financial Environment
Fiscal incentives: Certified training and educational organizations are exempt from VAT. While there are no particular stipulations on online education or platforms, these platforms can get certified if they have full-time content creators/teachers. (26)
Regulatory Environment
Education reform bill is under deliberation. As IOA falls under "informal education" under the Education Law of Mongolia. According to Chapter 10, the charter, rules, structure of the information education institute should be reviewed by a governemnt education agency.
Marketplace Participants
Private Sector
Corporates: TomYo EdTech LLC, MeLearn LLC; Investors: AND Global, ICT Group
Government
Ministry of Education and Science, Ministry of Digital Development and Communications, Minister for Labour and Social Protection
Multilaterals
United Nations Children's Fund, International Labor Organization, Save the Children, Asia Development Bank, German Development Agency
Non-Profit
All for Education NGO, Mongolian Education Alliance
Target Locations
Mongolia: Ulaanbaatar
Mongolia: Orkhon
References
- (1) World Bank (2020). HCI Report Mongolia
- (2) UNDP, Government of Mongolia (2020) Human Development Report
- (3) UNESCO (2020) Education Policy Review
- (4) Government of Mongolia (2021). Education sector mid-term development plan
- (5) ILO (2017) Jobs and skills for youth: Review of policies for youth employment in Mongolia
- (6) UNICEF (2021) MICS-EAGLE Mongolia Education Fact Sheet
- (7) Center for technical education, evaluation, information and methodology (2021) https://mlsp.gov.mn/uploads/files/52MT_salbariin_ur_chadvariin_erelt.pdf
- (8) UNICEF (2022). https://www.unicef.org/mongolia/stories/transforming-education
- (9) Government of Mongolia (2021) Ten-year development plan
- (10) National Statistical Office (2021) https://1212.mn/BookLibraryDownload.ashx?url=Internet__phone_use_2020.pdf&ln=Mn
- (11) ICT internal survey (2020)
- (12) UNDP, (2021), Iterating a Mongolian version of Digital Literacy, https://www.undp.org/mongolia/blog/iterating-mongolian-version-digital-literacy
- (13) Data Portal (2022) DIGITAL 2022: MONGOLIA. https://datareportal.com/reports/digital-2022-mongolia
- (14) NSO (2023) MONTHLY AVERAGE PER CAPITA CONSUMPTION, by main categories of consumption, urban and rural https://www2.1212.mn/tables.aspx?tbl_id=DT_NSO_1900_011V1&13999001_select_all=1&13999001SingleSelect=&HSEH_select_all=1&HSEHSingleSelect=_2_3_5_6_7_8_9_10_11_12&YearY_select_all=1&YearYSingleSelect=&viewtype=table
- (15) Statista (2023) Online Education - Worldwide https://www.statista.com/outlook/dmo/eservices/online-education/worldwide
- (16) Lorinet Foundation. (2022). Youth Employability Landscape Study, https://www.lorinetfoundation.org/wp-content/uploads/2022/05/ENG_Youth-Employability-Landscape-Study_Lorinet-Foundation_2022.pdf
- (17) NSO (2023) GRADUATES OF DOMESTIC UNIVERSITIES, INSTITUTES AND COLLEGES, by professional field, by educational degree
- (18) The Asia Foundation (2019) Women in ICT: Entering a Forbidden Space https://asiafoundation.org/2019/05/08/women-in-ict-entering-a-forbidden-space/
- (19) SDT Tracker (2023) Gender Equality https://sdg-tracker.org/gender-equality
- (20) ADB (2022) Working paper: Impact of Gender Inequality on Long-Term Economic Growth in Mongolia. https://www.adb.org/publications/impact-gender-inequality-long-term-economic-growth-mongolia
- (21) Yin, Zhaohui et al. (2022) The impact of online education on carbon emissions in the context of the COVID-19 pandemic – Taking Chinese universities as examples, https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC8913334/
- (22) ILO (2017) Jobs and skills for youth: Review of policies for youth employment in Mongolia. Retrieved from https://www.ilo.org/wcmsp5/groups/public/---ed_emp/documents/publication/wcms_542025.pdf
- (23) ADB (2016) Social Protection Brief. Strengthening the Labor Market in Mongolia: Skills for Employment Project
- (24) Government of Mongolia (2020), Mongolia's Five-year Development Guideline for 2021-2025 https://cabinet.gov.mn/wp-content/uploads/2020_FIVE_YEAR_DEVELOPMENT_GUIDELINE_OF_MONGOLIA_2021-2025_Final_OE.pdf
- (25) Government of Mongolia (2020), Mongolia's ten year development plan
- (26) Mongolian Tax Authority (202X) List of services and products exempt from VAT