eLearning and India

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Malabike Sarkar writes and interesting article “e-Learning, a peep into the future” about the trend of India to both require and also offer, valuable online distance-learning programs

….Shailesh H Mehta, CEO & Founder, GurukulOnline Learning Solutions, said, “e-learning is the need of the hour in India. More than 50% of India’s population is under 25 yrs of age. We have the biggest youth brigade in the world. Population is not necessarily a liability as is generally believed. It can be turned into an economic resource and a huge competitive advantage if we can provide the right education and training to the masses. India is not rich in natural resources therefore our primary strength is our people. We should provide vocational education to those who cannot opt for higher education and try to provide large scale, high quality higher educational facilities. All this requires use of technology whether we are looking at a brick and mortar, click (virtual) or a blended model.”

e-learning enables the distribution of quality education easier, faster, in a more convenient manner and facilitates content customization at the same time. The Indian e-learning market is still at a nascent stage and is far behind when compared to those in developed nations. There are certain zones within the country, especially in the metropolitan cities, where the adoption is faster. At the same time, there are zones where there the technology has yet to establish even a beachhead due to the lack of network infrastructure. Some organizations/institutions are trying out e-learning.

The e-learning market can be sliced and diced in many ways. The first is on the basis of purpose, such as training (primarily for the employees in the corporate sector), self- education (for young students who are willing to pursue both higher education and work), and others (such as housewives who want to get involved in studies during their free time, self-employed people, etc). Among all these potential target segments the corporate sector is the biggest consumer of e-learning. Secondly, we can also segment this market by the mode of learning, which can be blended (a mix of traditional and online learning) or pure e-learning (online learning only).

He concludes with his expectations of eLearning in the Indian market

“e-learning will take some time to gain visibility in the Indian market and in the near future there shall be certain pockets in the country that will adopt this concept sooner. These will be the places that have a better network infrastructure and a mindset, which is ready to understand and explore the advantages of e-learning,” said Saxena.

In closing, when he says that “more than 50% of India’s population is under 25 yrs of age. We have the biggest youth brigade in the world“, I immediately think that this will have a huge impact on the junior youth of India, those youth aged between 12 and 15, say.

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Junior Youth