Pay per student, or pay per improvement?

The Economist published a brutal line recently:

“Ed-tech is profitable. It is also mostly useless.”

Ouch.

But they’re not wrong.

For years, much of ed-tech has optimized for engagement, not learning.

More logins.
More clicks.
More content consumed.

But consumption isn’t comprehension.

Technology in schools should be judged by one metric:

Are students actually improving?

That sounds obvious.

Yet most dashboards track activity, not progress.

That’s backwards.

At Efekta, we’re obsessed with one thing:

Measuring learning outcomes accurately.

Because without measurement, you can’t optimize. Not at the individual level, and certainly not at national scale.

Here’s a thought:

What if ed-tech shifted from “pay per student” to “pay per improvement”?

AI is already forcing much of SaaS to rethink seat-based pricing.

Why should education be different?

If institutions bought impact instead of licenses, the competitive dynamic would change overnight.

From “Who is cheapest?” to “Who delivers results?”

Then ed-tech wouldn’t just be profitable.

It would be useful.

Is the industry ready to tie revenue to outcomes — or are we still too comfortable selling access?

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Originally posted on LinkedIn.