India: Top Target for Online Universities

Source: bbc.com

India, with its huge education-hungry population, is the prime target of one of the world's biggest online university providers

of young people in India get university education; there are a lot of talented people who "don't make the cut"

Indian government has a target to increase university enrolment by 30% by 2030

12%

30%

• Online courses can fill the skill gap and widen access to university for India's ambitious youngsters

• The most popular courses for the online students are all related to information technology or data science

• India's burgeoning software industry will mean a growing demand for skilled workers which cannot be fulfilled by the current education system

Software Industry

• There were exaggerated expectations that MOOCs would ‘change the world immediately’ but it should not be a surprise that ‘500-year-old institutions didn't just roll over and die’

• What's really happening is something socially valuable – MOOCs are closing the skills gap, giving people an opportunity

• MOOCs will have plenty of competition to attract India's students

Skill Gap

• The most valuable kind of recognition is from employers, when they accept online MOOC courses as relevant for job applications

• That's a hurdle that doesn't require accreditation, it's a marketplace recognition. That's going to move faster than any accreditation process as it's market driven not bureaucratic

• When MOOCs first appeared a few years ago, they were hailed as a revolution in higher education, promising the kind of impact the internet had brought to retail and entertainment

Employer Recognition

• Online courses is a tough market, so foreign universities are working with local institutions and support courses accredited by Indian Universities

• The local institutions deliver their own qualifications with content and online teaching resources provided by the foreign universities

• Distance learning is a practical way for India to reach its target for another 14 million university places in less than 15 years

• A recent report from the British Council forecasts that by 2025 India will have the biggest student-age population in the world resulting in a more intense competition from universities for a share of this expanding market

Local Partners

At present, India has 3.5 million students on distance learning degrees and this is going to increase significantly