The online education market in India has undergone significant advancements in the last few decades. The exponentially-developing technology, smartphone penetration, and availability of high-speed Internet have resulted in easy acceptance of online education models amongst the masses.
As per statistical data, India’s online education market is expected to reach US$ 1.96 billion backed by 9.6 million learners by 2021 – a significant jump from US$ 247 million and 1.6 million learners respectively in 2016.
However, the Covid-19 outbreak then battered the education systems across the globe, affecting around 90% of the world’s student population. Particularly in India, over 1.5 million schools were closed on account of the pandemic, affecting 286 million children in the middle of the academic year.. In quantifiable monetary terms, the impact of school closures is estimated to result in the loss of Rs. 32.2 lakh crores.
The Covid-19 pandemic has made online education more centric in the lives of both educators and learners. To combat the damages incurred and ongoing disruption, educational institutions across the country started embracing online education as a solution to fill the void created by the imposed restrictions. The revised National Education Policy has also stressed on the importance of pairing traditional modes of learning with online education.
Online education in India – Highlights
- Primary and secondary supplementary education forms the largest category by 2021 with a value of US$ 773 million and is growing at the CAGR of 60%
- Convenience, flexibility to start online courses, and availability of study material are some of the key factors that help students adopt the online education mode
- The comparatively lower cost of online education is a significant growth driver of online education
- The Indian online education market value is expected to reach US$ 8.6 billion by 2026
Ups and downs of payment acceptance for educational institutions
Payments related to online education have their own unique story. On one hand, the reduction in overall income of parents due to the pandemic asks for lower fees for online classes. Even the Supreme Court suggested that the educational institutions should reduce fees as they follow the online-only model for education.
On the other hand, educational institutions everywhere find it difficult to start accepting fees online which were traditionally accepted mainly in cash or direct transfers. Accepting online fees with or without websites from multiple pay modes, collecting ad hoc fees for special events, streamlining recurring monthly fee acceptance, or manually reconciling accounts without a central dashboard, there are several problems faced by educators to switch to the online education model.
If you run an educational institution or are a part of its management team, you will closely relate to many of the problems faced while dealing with digital payments for education.
Common problems you face when dealing with payments for online education
How to accept payments online?
Most educational institutions, small and big, use ERP software to deal with various day-to-day tasks, including administration, fee management, and many others. However, software does not have an in-built payments infrastructure and would need to integrate separately with a payment gateway. It is important for decision makers at educational institutes to make the optimal decision in choosing the right payment tools and the right provider to solve for their specific payment related needs.
Other payment-related challenges for an educational institution like yours include:
- Inability to accept payments via multiple payment sources (credit cards, debit cards, net banking, etc.)
- Manual reconciliation of payments accepted
- In-person visit of students/parents to make the fee payments, which is not preferred during the Covid-scenario
Learn more about what makes Paytm Payment Gateway the best one in India.
Our solution – Paytm Payment Gateway for educational institutions
You can simply make the payment processing easier by choosing Paytm Payment Gateway as your payment partner.
Here are ten powerful reasons why you should choose Paytm Payment Gateway to manage fee payments:
- Easy to integrate with your website, app, or ERP system
- 100% online onboarding and instant activation. You can even upgrade your account with minimum documentation
- Easy to accept online payments from 100+ payment sources – credit cards, net banking, UPI, and two exclusive modes – Paytm Wallet and Paytm Postpaid which are the #1 payment option at checkout for millions of students and parents
- Industry-best success rates
- 0% fees on UPI and RuPay transactions.
- 99.99% payment gateway uptime to ensure no payment fails
- Next day settlement with no holiday-delays
- 250 million+ tokenized saved cards for super-fast checkouts
- Dedicated support for all queries
- Trusted by the leading brands in India for their payment needs
How to accept fees without a website or app for online education?
The next big challenge for educational institutions is to invest in a website that can support online payments. While there are millions of schools and colleges in India, each of these institutions does not have a website, let alone one that supports online payment acceptance.
For small- and mid-size institutions located in different Indian states, having a website or app comes with its fair share of challenges. These include:
- Investment in getting the website designed
- Hiring of IT professionals for the website’s regular maintenance and upkeep
- Transaction charges to be paid to the payment gateway in addition
- Reminding parents to pay online education fees timely
Our solution – Paytm app listing to accept online education fees
Even if you do not have a website that represents your educational institution, you can start accepting fees online via the Paytm app that has 330 million+ registered users. You can get your institution listed on the and then allow the students/parents to make fee payments online through a familiar channel that they are already using to make bill payments and recharges.
Given below are some of the major perks of accepting education fees online via Paytm:
- Paytm’s brand trust and ease of use among 330 million+ users
- 0% transaction fees on UPI and RuPay to be paid by you
- Exciting cashback offers for the payers (students/parents) to use Paytm for fee payment
- In-built notifications and reminders to help you get paid on time
- Multiple settlement modes – same day, next day, real-time, or in batches
- Easy to accept payments via credit cards, debit cards, net banking, and many other payment sources
**Even if you are part of an institute that has a website or app, listing yourself on the Paytm app can boost visibility for your brand and give parents and students a new and convenient way to pay fees.
How to accept ad-hoc payments from students whenever needed?
The basic understanding of education fees for both the learners and educators is limited to a monthly sum that covers tuition fees, sports fees, and library fees. However, there are several instances like special seminars, educational trips, or special events for which the school management asks for separate contributions from the participants.
Since it is a non-recurring payment, you would not want to build a complete payment set-up just for such requirements.
Our solution – Paytm Payment Links to accept ad-hoc payments online
With Paytm Payment Links, you can start accepting ad-hoc payments online without having to worry about dealing with cash. The best part is – you do not need any website or app to start using payment links. You can also create these links on the go using the Paytm for Business dashboard.
Other benefits of using Paytm Payment Links for such payment collection needs are:
- Easy to create our payment links
- Easy to share the links via email, WhatsApp, or SMS to the payer
- Availability of multiple payment sources – credit/debit card, Paytm Wallet, UPI, etc.
- Facility to allow the payers to send partial payments
- Bulk payment links creation supported (up to 100)
- Easy to accept payments through International cards
You May Also Like to Read: Paytm Payment Links – A Faster Way to Collect Online Payments
How to split payments with multiple vendors/bank accounts?
A crucial part of managing payments related to educational institutions is to split or distribute fees across different stakeholders. For example, after receiving the education fee in total, you would want to send a specific amount to different bank accounts handling different departments, like sports, library, or laboratory. Similarly, if you receive all the fees in one central account, you might want to split into the bank accounts related to the individual branches.
The problem does not end there as you also need to hire individuals for manual settlements and reconciliations.
Our solution – Paytm Split Settlements
With Paytm Split Settlements, you can easily split the incoming payments to various stakeholders/bank accounts. Just select the amount or percentage based on which you want to split the payment, and Paytm Split Settlements will do it for you.
Here’s how Paytm Split Settlements benefit you in handling online education payments:
- Ease of splitting payments to as many bank accounts as you need
- Time-saving
- No need for manual reconciliation
- Quick payment transfer to the third parties involved, like vendors, suppliers, etc.
- Easy management of various bank accounts
- Single dashboard to manage all the payments
How to collect recurring online education fees in a simpler manner?
Most educational institutions and MOOCs now offer short-term learning programs and ask for recurring fee acceptance from the learners. The payment model of such programs is similar to OTT and grocery subscriptions that are commonly used in our lives.
The pursuit of online education comes with the hassles of regular fee collection, reminders for timely fee payments, and maintenance of payment history.
Our solution – Paytm Subscriptions
Paytm Subscriptions can help you simplify the process of recurring fee collection online. With this innovative payment solution, you can automate collections from the students/parents effortlessly.
Some of the major perks of switching to Paytm Subscriptions for online education payment collection are:
- Easy to accept payments from credit cards, debit cards, and various other payment sources
- UPI AutoPay Supported
- Subscription links to accept payments online without a website or app
- Supports various business models that ask for automatic payments with a free trial, one-time charge, or variable charges
Read more: Paytm Subscriptions.
Get more with Paytm’s Comprehensive Payment Suite for Education
| Paytm Payment Product | Utility |
| Paytm Payment Gateway | To accept payments online via your website or app |
| Paytm App Listing | To accept education fees online without a website or app |
| Paytm Links | To accept non-recurring payments easily |
| Paytm Split Settlements | To split incoming payments between various bank accounts/stakeholders |
| Paytm Subscriptions | To collect recurring online education fees |
Conclusion
No matter what kind of problems you face in accepting payments online, we have a solution to solve them all. With Paytm payment solutions, you can streamline various tasks related to accepting and managing payments for your educational institution. Whether you run a small school, a college, coaching classes, or offer online education courses, trust Paytm like your peers.
