How online technology is changing the way the world learns

C.P. Gopinathan and K. Ramachandran

Indian higher education is at an inflexion point. Several forces from within and outside are hitting the entire sector. These forces including cost, technology and new sets of demanding learners, are forcing education providers to re-look at existing models of education delivery.

The questions is will the existing brick and mortar, infrastructure-led higher education system be able to meet the rising new demands or cope with the large scale changes. With each passing moment, it is clear they cannot.

While access, equity, and quality (or excellence) remain the thrust areas of the Human Resources Development Ministry’s mandate, it is time policy makers and administrators consider how higher education can be delivered differently but, with the same thrust and objectives.

More than any other force, technology today is a large force multiplier, that possesses the ability to answer the most critical questions around the same issues of access, equity, excellence and affordability today, unlike, even the recent past.

Technology can mediate higher education delivery since it can help us new pedagogical tools, make higher education more learner-centric, and make the entire curriculum transaction, far more innovative and engaging for the learner.

Everyone agrees on how technology can improve higher education transaction. But it is pertinent to argue more on how a technology-mediated system can help meet India’s national goals, and how it offers considerably higher leverage for institutions and administrators.

Consider this: Today our Gross Enrollment ratio (the number of people studying in higher education institutions as a proportion of the 17 -25 age group population in the country), is less than 20 percent.

As per 2011 Census of India data, 225 million people are in the 10 - 19 years age group. Going by current projections, and the Government of India’s ambitious GER target of reaching 25 – 30 per cent in the next 5-7 years, our country will still have a deficit of at least 25 – 30 million seats in higher education institutions (HEIs) in the same time frame. And remember, we have taken over 100 years to build the present capacity of 20 million seats in 650 universities and 40,000 other HEIs.

Thus, the biggest question today is: How do we create the infrastructure, facilities, and most importantly the critical mass of teachers to meet this surge in the number of aspirants? Theoretically, we can use public and private funding to create the capacity required. But will all the aspirants be able to afford the cost of higher education? Can we create such a large number of quality teachers in the limited time frame?

Data from the RBI show that more than 25 lakh students today have taken educational loans worth INR 48,416 crore. Yes, students borrow educational loans hoping to repay once get a job after graduation. But the reality is that the new emerging class of learners will be from India’s hinterland. They need completely new forms of learning and new forms of financing of higher education. So what are the options available for increasing the capacity and capability of the HEIs. 1. We can double the capacity of the top 10 per cent of existing institutions that account for 3 million students.

2. Elevate the top 10 percent institutions in India and declare them universities so that they can offer more degrees, diplomas and skill based certification programmes and thus make the learners more employable or economically productive..

These two can at best cater to 5 million students. What about the rest of the learners who are eager to enter higher education, and become part of India’s growth story?

Here Option 3 emerges: Use an ideal combination of technology and newer forms of pedagogy to scale up the capacity in HEIs - dramatically.

Recent advances in mobile/internet technologies and the rise of open and online education, together hold the promise for augmenting conventional education to meet present and emerging needs. Technology can help scale up or optimize the reach and access to education delivery elastically.

And significantly, technology mediated education, with a combination of scientific pedagogical designs/methods/processes - keeping the adult learner at its heart - can help deliver a degree or any other learning program at a disproportionately low cost compared to conventional education. And it can ensure access; equity and affordability.

Massive Online and Open Courses (MOOCs) offered by some global players may not work for all kinds of learners due to its content-broadcast model (not learner centric). However, as the authors can vouch for, technology platforms/ tools are available to make online education and pedagogy on par with the offline methods. They can ensure and track with quantifiable metrics, learner engagement, learning outcomes, assessments and specific analytics on outcomes for each learner or large groups of learners.

We should also remember online learning does not merely mean having a library of videos and course material. That would be a mere digital library. The new age online learning needs to match the perception and efficacy of the offline model. That’s where a strong expertise of pedagogy can travel along with technology.

Advantages of new age online higher education:

The biggest advantage that online learning offers students is the flexibility to learn at their own pace, learn anywhere anytime of their choice. Unlike in a crowded classroom of today, our experience shows, online learners because of the inherent nature of the platform are not afraid of sending a mail or live message to raise queries or doubts.

Online education offers personalized learning methods. In a typical college this is not possible with existing resources.

In an online, open environment, a student can see, listen and interact with the finest expert in any field and absorb that information at his or her own pace, at a very low cost. Social media, communities, discussion forums, chat, mail and online docs can accelerate interaction even better than they can do over classrooms.

Tracking learning milestones, sending notifications and submission of assignments, tracking classroom participation levels of each student, and deriving any amount of analytics about the entire learning process, are all possible in online format. The providers (institutions) can get dashboards containing defined metrics at any point of time, which is not easily achieved in traditional education.

And all these are happening, as we speak. Thus, an institution can opt for adding an online capability to its brick and mortar model, enabling them to force-multiply the capability of its teachers, spread its infrastructure, people and educational offerings to thousands of online learners at very little extra cost. For the students, online education means getting higher knowledge and value added certification, access to the best of teachers and learning resources, live case studies, inputs from industry experts or practicing professionals.

Youngsters who cannot afford to enter colleges and are forced take up a job to meet family commitments, can continue to “earn” while they “learn” and gain higher education. Once they complete their course or programme, the students will certainly pick up knowledge or domain experience to move up the social ladder to match their aspirations.

In the foreseeable future, education providers and policy makers have the option to adopt technologies to scale up their capacity and deliver programs that can build domain knowledge / skills of millions of students. Thus online education not only increases the reach and power of education, but has the capacity to add power to India’s economic prowess.

The only question is how fast are we going to decide! The authors have over 16 years of experience in observing and delivering learning to a variety of learners, from students to corporate executives. They can be reached at gopi@361dm.com and krc@361dm.com