Dream of doing something for the education

Graduated from the Faculty of Information Technology of Hanoi University of Science and Technology in 2001 and from South Columbia Univeristy (USA) in 2007, Mr Pham Giang Linh had spent 10 years working as consultant in management, supervision, assessment and information control for projects, human development programs, public policy in many international organizations. He is also a co-founder of Edmicro Education Joint Stock Company, the Galileo Active Learning Education System and Hanoi Adelaide School. However, Mr Pham Giang Linh finally chooses to dedicate himself in HOCMAI with the dream of providing equal access to education for every student. 

Hocmai.vn was founded in March 2007, at the same with Topica. However, both companies struggled because the online education model had not been well-received. 

Despite being invested by IDG Investment Fund to build learning materials, HOCMAI used to be in the edge of giving up due to the pressure from the investor to boost the project development while Internet services has not yet developed and the amount of initial investment went out within 2 years. To maintain the model, HOCMAI leaders had to make a lot of efforts, even opening offline classes. 

When Mrs Pham Giang Linh decided to join HOCMAI in 2012, the project was still struggling to survive. However, the vision and philosophy of HOCMAI are in accordance with his thinking which sets objective to improve quality education access to Vietnamese students. He believes HOCMAI is a positive model which does not focus on calling for external investment. They attempt to maintain the revenue and pursuit their mission instead of pouring money on creating contents and advertising. 

Being a native Ninh Binh who came to Hanoi to study, Mr Giang Linh understands that hundred students have to study in crammed classes and there is nothing for sure that how much they learn from those.

“In a 30 to 50 students class, the teacher can only teach according to the level of top 3 best or 3 worst students. That is the limitation of traditional education. Meanwhile, online education can respond to each individual level. Each student can also re-study parts that they have not understood. I would like to pursuit the learning model that stimulates self-studying and love of learning from which contribute to Vietnamese education” - said Mr Giang Linh.

Product investment

While many start-up companies invest in technology, HOCMAI focuses on education products. The basis of education is the communication between people while technology is only a mean to deliver information. That explains why among 300 employees of HOCMAI, ⅔ of them working in product development. 

By focusing on product, HOCMAI model is the same as a digital school with a full range of design, program development, learning demand and courses assessment. 

According to him, the biggest benefit of online education is cost-saving. However in order to gain revenue, the project needs to attract a large system of learners. If the quality is not good enough, the brand is not strong enough, no one will use the service to study online. The course should also be designed to be easy to understand by using technology to simulate algorithms or difficult knowledge so that students feel like they are exploring new things instead of cramming boring lessons”.

In addition, community online learning portals need to be designed appropriately for students, parents and teachers to connect, communicate and study. In HOCMAI, parents can connect with the system by Facebook, Zalo and Email in order to update their children’s learning. 

Until now, there are 4 millions users, 1 million paid accounts and a forum of 2 millions students constantly communicating with each other. On average, each year on HOCMAI, there are approximately 100.000 paid accounts and 500.000 new-registered accounts with the annual growth rate of 45 - 50%. However, according to Mr Giang Linh, the number of users now only accounts for 5 - 6% of students nationwide because parents still hesitate about letting their children study on the Internet. 

This apprehension becomes a barrier for online learning providers because investing in this industry is not easy to get instant success. 

“Although investing in online education does not depend on geographical location and does not require too much initial capital, the size is not limited and it is possible to expand to international market; if we are failed to guarantee the quality, strengthen the brand and remain patient, it is unlikely for the project to be success” - said Mr Giang Linh. 

He mentions an example of China with 10 online education models. However in Vietnam, traditional investment model still attract most investors because of the 20 - 50% profit while investing in online education takes a long time to get revenues. 

After 13 years of development, although HOCMAI owns a massive contents for all levels (from grade 1 to grade 12), their leaders still working on a few start-up projects to study the market and create pressure for innovation. 

“Many people said that there is no need to change once it is settled. However, let’s look at a child growing every single day, HOCMAI is like a living body, we will die if we do not change. In traditional education, teachers can make mistakes and correct them; but in online education, there is no room for mistakes” - Mr Giang Linh emphasized. 

Most recently, HOCMAI cooperated with Funix to teach programming for students from grade 6 to grade 12 with the goal of helping students to be able to work right after graduating from high school, if they do not want to get into university. Another project is a 1-1 English teaching program with foreigner teachers which has been implemented in HOCMAI for more than 1 year. 

Regarding the goal of HOCMAI, Mr Giang Linh said: “There are still many problems about Vietnamese education. If our system cannot address these problems, the expanding has no meaning. The current market with 17 millions students has much potential and we need to strengthen our brand before international agents come in. 

Our vision does not stop in Vietnam market. In the next 3 to 5 years, Philippines và Indonesia will be the target of HOCMAI because they both are large market suitable for developing online education. 

However, for the time being, we still focus on developing in Vietnam market and the quality is always the top priority. When working in education industry, if all you care about is profit, it is not possible to grow in a sustainable way. Many previous agents had to give up because investing in education, particularly in online education, is not easy” - said Mr Giang Linh. 

Important puzzle in educating children

What do you expect from Vietnamese Youth when investing in online education?

I hope to be able to educate and orientate young people to career path that really meets practical needs and comes with the opportunity to develop themselves. I expect to contribute to educate a new generation that can generate many good ideas for the country to develop. 

What is the fundamental change that online education brings to students? 

Online education is an important puzzle in educating children. HOCMAI expects to bing them inspiration and love in order to prepare good knowledge, skills and qualities for their future. 

Does HOCMAI have a plan to call for capital investment? 

Opportunities remain open, as long as the investor has an appropriate development plan. Education is a long term investment. Therefore, investors of HOCMAI need to have the same philosophy and orientation in order to accompany and promote each other for further development.