Wherever you go, your classroom follows

From all the things that technology can bring, I love this concept of
learning anywhere, anytime. It gives people the freedom to study at their
convenience. It can, over a period of time, cut the cost of education, ensure
globalization and even cut the learning time by as much as 40 percent, as per
some studies.

Welcome to the world of online education, or e-learning, as it is more
commonly known as.

Online education can be classified into corporate and non-corporate
initiatives. The former includes learning systems installed by companies to
train their sales force, shop floor engineers, induction programs attendees, and
more. Those attending online graduate and post-graduate courses, continuing
education, adult education, skills-learning programs fall in the latter
category. The common thread is the high initial cost of investment of both
hardware and software. Primarily for this reason, this potentially multi-billion
dollar industry is growing at a slower rate than the promise it had originally
shown. However, things are on an upswing now.

Businesses around the world are showing more enthusiasm in implementing
online corporate training. Factors causing this growth include global
workforces, convenience of time and access, logistical simplicity and lower
delivery costs. The flip side is the high initial cost of setting an online
learning system.

On the education side, electronic campuses are evolving. They try to
duplicate the working of familiar offline colleges and universities. They
welcome new students online with messages from the academic staff, offer
financial aid, course moderators, assessment tests at regular intervals, career
counseling, and also help with placements.

Teachers in electronic classrooms deliver lectures with the help of notes,
videos and websites, group discussions and group projects, 24x7 live mentoring,
virtual labs or study environments. Videoconferences allow students to see,
hear, and interact with faculty and other students worldwide. Online libraries
offer multimedia of resources such as searchable catalogs, website links and
online tutoring centers.

India is also taking a few tentative steps in this direction. An IDC estimate
predicts the worldwide e-learning market at $23 bn by end 2005. In India, it is
estimated between $10—15 mn, with a high growth potential. There are numerous
pilot projects but the spread is low.

Online education is gaining momentum among high salaried professionals for
management and skill-enhancement courses-either offered by top-notch B-schools
of India or from the international universities offering online courses. One
such initiative is the DirecWay Global Education (DWGE) platform that delivers
broadband satellite-based education. Developed by Hughes Escorts Communications,
it works on the concept of interactive onsite learning (IOL) linking students in
different parts of the country through live audio, video, and data. The
initiative is being used, or explored, by premier management and technology
schools of India like IIM Banglore/Calcutta/Kohizokode, IIT Delhi, XLRI
Jamshedpur, Manipal Academy of Higher Education, and quite a few others. It
attempts to provide all the goodness of online education-no loss of
productivity, time savings, flexibility of location-while retaining the
interactivity of classroom training. There are many others also who are active
in this area. Indian corporates are also trying to set up knowledge banks that
can be used for information sharing purposes, and experimenting with providing
online training.

But online courses have yet to find a foothold in the arena of school and
college education. Reasons abound. Primary being the low cost of education in
government-aided schools, colleges and professional institutes. Second,
high-cost of courses. Third, low number of students due to low internet
penetration. Fourth, low technology penetration. Fifth, high connectivity cost.
Sixth, low bandwidth, an important element for downloading multimedia content
and setting up videoconferencing. And, seventh, lack of regional-language
courses. This is from where volumes can come and defray the cost of development.

Yet the potential is high. How soon will it be tapped?

(The author is Editor-in-Chief of CyberMedia publications. He can be reached
at shyamm@cybermedia.co.in)