E-learning is the latest fad in India

Forget the four-walled classroom, the standing teacher, blackboard, chalk piece, alarm bell—and most importantly the tuition fees. Today, you can get a degree of your choice without these, online.

People and organisations have started turning to online universities, that are becoming popular and gaining acceptance. For people who have the drive to learn but lack resources, it becomes the ideal choice, especially for subjects that don’t need much of practical learning.

Learning via online is not restricted to within the four walls of the classroom, but it’s as wide as the world wide web. You can choose the courses and learn them from your bedroom. You can decide your study methods and the timings. At the end, you gain knowledge and certificates with a different learning experience.

Almost every aspect of our lives, including education, has been completely altered by the internet revolution we're in the middle of, and it's got to the point where now almost anything that can be done in the real world can also be done in the virtual world – including being educated, and getting academic credits, certificates, degrees and qualifications.

Several studies, including the Sloan Report on Online Education, have shown that between 2002 and 2007, the number of students in the United States and Canada who registered for online courses increased at the rate of 20% per year and that by 2008, over 4.6 million students were taking at least one online course each.

The National Centre for Education Statistics predicted that, in the same year, there were 18 million online students worldwide, a 1.6% increase from 2002. In India, though the numbers are not as high as they are abroad, the concept of online education has enormous scope.

As education becomes more competitive and expensive and the Internet becomes more popular and accessible, more and more students are finding ways to overcome geographical barriers.

Hughes Global Education, which collaborates with several reputed universities in India like the IITs, IIMs, MICA and NLU, offers online education and training programmes on a large scale. University students, corporate professionals and anyone who has access to the net can take up its courses.

Hughes’ technology allows two-way communication between students and teachers via a professional studio. Courses and exams are both held online. Hughes offers degrees, diplomas as well as certificates, depending on the course. It also noted a rapid increase in the number of students getting enrolled in India.

“Organisations have started realising the huge potential that this field [online education] holds,” an Hughes official said. “The Internet clearly has immense potential and the system is grasping it as effectively and quickly as it can to make the most out of it.”

“Though the technology required for e-learning was present long before overseas than it was in India, today India is progressing almost as rapidly. We are quite parallel to institutions abroad,” he said. Hughes is the lone institute that offers a post-graduate degree in general management through an online course.
Punjab Technical University offers an online programme which makes students learn by themselves and understand the course material in their own way.

After receiving the study material, the students progress on their own holding frequent interactions with lecturers and mentors through online media platforms like chat, discussion forum and e-mail. This way, the student doesn’t get direct lessons but uses his/her own study methods with the guidance of a mentor.
Online courses provide students with collaboration tools to form online communities for learning.

PTU’s online programmes are popular and, according to its website, the number of students getting enrolled has been witnessing cent per cent annual growth for the last four years.
Online education has now become an option for both schoolchildren and university students. Khan Academy is another rapidly-growing venture which provides schoolchildren with free online tutoring on YouTube.

Founder Salman Khan explains the school lessons in chapters. Subjects that he takes up are physics, chemistry and maths. In September 2010, Google granted Khan Academy $2 million support because of its exploding popularity.

The job scope for people with degrees and diplomas obtained online is also growing. This is because the institutions are becoming more and more aware of the fact that online learning is self-learning and even without the brand name of a famous university, it adds value to an individual’s profile.

The openness which the job market has towards unconventional learning approaches like self-learning is still moderate—but it’s gaining popularity as the number of takers rise.