Edu-leaders

It is 8 am on Sunday morning. While others think about sleeping in and waking up late to a lazy Sunday, Taru Agarwal is in a senior management programme class. The class is discussing a case study, and Rohit and Taru have diametrically opposing views on what needs to be done. Finally the professor intervenes to cool tempers. It’s a regular class, except that Taru is in New Delhi, Rohit in Chennai and the professor is in Kolkata.

As an entrepreneur, Taru has a hectic professional life—dealing with clients, getting work done by her employees and managing the accounts and other support functions for her firm. Time and again she felt the need for a management education for both personal growth and for better management of her business, but she was unable to leave her job for a year. Nor was she enthusiastic about plain, text-based correspondence courses.

That was until she heard about virtual classroom-based distance learning. “I opted for a distance learning programme that could be done along with my full-day work. The classes for the Senior Management Programme at IIM Calcutta were held on the weekend, so it was ideal.”

The world over, distance education, especially with the aid of technology, is seen as a comprehensive method to bring more and more students into the fold of higher education. And there is good reason for this. The total number of enrolments in tertiary (higher) education worldwide shot up by more than 51 percent, from 100.8 million in 2000 to 152.5 million in 2008. This coincides with increased penetration of technology-aided distance learning initiatives across the world.

Growing Over Time
Dr. Manjulika Srivastava, Associate Professor of Distance Education, STRIDE, Indira Gandhi National Open University (IGNOU), in her paper A Comparative Study on Current Trends in Distance Education in Canada and India, states that in most countries distance education evolves in three phases—the correspondence education phase, the open and distance education phase, and the online education phase. Not surprisingly in India, with several centuries living back to back, these phases can all be found co-existing.

Distance learning education came into being in the country through the recommendations of the Third Five Year Plan (1961-66). The implementation of this happened in 1962. For India, the period from 1962 to the early 1980s was the correspondence phase. Then in 1982, the first Open University (OU), Dr. B.R. Ambedkar Open University, was established. This was followed by several other OUs, including IGNOU in 1985. And then the latter part of the ‘90s and the turn of the millennium saw the emergence of virtual platforms of education, auguring the online phase of distance education. Today, open and distance learning in India accounts for 24 percent of the total number students in higher education.

There are three types of institutions offering ODE—those that specifically offer distance learning, like IGNOU, the other open universities, Symbiosis Centre for Distance Learning (SCDL), and so on; those that are traditional institutions, looking to expand their base and impact more people with distance learning, like the management institutions, and those that enter it from the corporate and technology side and tie up with traditional institutions, like NIIT, Hughes, Educomp, Liqvid and others.

Technologically Inclined
In the Indian education sector, technology is beginning to play a bigger role in both the creation and delivery of course content. It started with radio and television and has gone on to include the computer.

Says Professor V.N. Rajasekharan Pillai, chairman and vice chancellor, IGNOU, “Technology has contributed significantly in the field of education. The radio, TV, print media as well as the new media—Internet, satellite and multimedia—have all contributed to education. These are all tools for enhancing the quality of the teaching-learning process in the classroom, and thereby enhancing the quantity of education delivery as well as its reach.”

He goes on to explain how technology boosts distance education by enhancing both, its quality as well as reach. On one hand, it adds to the teaching learning experience, and on the other, with satellite and Internet, it reaches people who don’t otherwise have access to higher education.

In its recommendations to the government, the National Knowledge Commission’s (NKC) working group on open and distance education (ODE) says, “ICT must be suitably integrated into the ODE system, not only to ensure wider outreach and delivery, but also to make the pedagogical process more relevant, user-friendly, accessible and updatable. Pedagogical delivery in the ODE system must discard its heavy reliance on textual material and content-based evaluation and move towards skill, competency and capability development suited to the life and work situation of the learner.

ODE is not just for remote locations. Even for those living in urban areas, pursuing higher education or even going back to education may not be an option. And here, technology plays a big role. For Subhashis Basak, Sr. Programme Manager, Service Layer Technology, Juniper Networks, it was a way to upgrade his skills and advance his career. “With a good distance learning programme, you don’t need to leave your current job and family and the knowledge gained can be immediately tried out in the current company,” he says.

Different Roads, Same Destination
Many institutes today employ a combination of technological and traditional methods for both course content creation as well as course delivery.

IGNOU, the behemoth that it is, covers a wide spectrum of technology—based on the course one opts for—from TV, radio, EduSat to digital media, IPTV, broadband connectivity, cloud computing based solutions, video conferencing, and mobile education. The last delivers course content and tests over mobile phones. Apart from this, there is stress on using technology to create content. Professor Pillai explains the reason, “An ICT-enabled or ‘smart’ classroom is not just one with video recording of a monotonous 45-minute lecture given by a teacher. It has to be interspersed with presentations, demonstrations, illustrations and live examples to demonstrate the reality of the field. All this is the real content, and unless we provide this content, no one will opt for this.”

Like IGNOU, SCDL uses a mix of technology and traditional tools—it calls them blended learning programmes—all of which it manages in-house. Swati Majumdar, Director, SCDL, says, “Whether it is e-learning or self-learning material (SLM), the main thing is the content, and Symbiosis prefers that the copyright for that should remain with us, because we know our students the best, and because we know what content we want to put out as part of our vision.”

For a lot of institutions, technology is a retro-fit, but then there are also those who have entered the education sector from the technology route. NIIT Imperia and HughesNet Global Education, for instance. Both use satellite-based platforms to deliver classes in real time, simulating real classrooms. Both have tied up with reputed institutions for the content and curriculum delivery.

Says Shraman Jha, Senior Vice President, NIIT Imperia, “This is a fully live classroom, except that it is a geographically dispersed classroom. So, you could be in Ahmedabad, somebody else would be in Bhopal, and another could be in Patna, but for all practical purposes, you are part of that one classroom that is being conducted by a particular faculty.” With no time lag, the ability to interact with other students and an intuitive interface that includes features like a Raise Hand icon, the feeling of being in a real class is palpable, he adds.

The institutions that NIIT and HughesNet have partnered with felt they should concentrate on their core competency of course content and teaching, leaving the logistics and technology to the experts. Says Prof. S.S.S. Kumar, Chairman, Interactive Distance Learning (IDL) Programme, IIM Kozhikode, that while looking for a partner they looked at “the nature of technology, obsolescence rate, expertise to innovate on technology, experience in technology deployment and cost and reach.”

In most cases, both institutes as well as technology partners understand that technology is an enabler and the point is to use it to reach more students and give them more value.

Whatever the model they choose, for most institutions, taking the technology route for ODE is an obvious choice. Prof. Supriya Kumar De, Associate Dean, Satellite Programme, XLRI Jamshedpur, says “The heart of our platform is a powerful user interface that enables large number of geographically distributed participants sitting in their respective city classrooms across the country to have highly interactive one to one exchange with the central instructor who sits at the centrally-located studio in Jamshedpur.”

The Technology Edge
There are tangible benefits for both, the students as well as the institutions.

For the students, it is the convenience of any time, anywhere access to the best education. There is no need to leave job or family to attend classes. Says Taru, “At mid-career, you may not want to leave a job and do a course, for both professional and financial reasons. And if you happen to join one that is on the video-conferencing platform, you have the advantage of taking the course in almost a classroom format with the lecture and interaction with the faculty happening in real-time and being present in a classroom along with fellow students.”

The financial reasons are quite important. Shraman explains why: “A typical one year executive MBA programme on-campus, with an IIM, will cost you about Rs 15 lakh plus living expenses. Compared to that, say, a senior management programme from us, which is a fairly robust programme, costs roughly Rs 2-2.5 lakh.”

To the institute, the biggest benefit is scalability. With distance learning, the cap on the number of seats goes up, and with technology, the cap goes up even further. Since the institute now offers flexibility, the types of students who can benefit become more varied—senior management, those looking for continuing education, housewives, the disabled, and even the elderly. It offers all of them a second chance. All this gives institutions a wider audience base to tap into.

There are financial benefits following that, obviously, since higher numbers mean higher revenues. While a typical class in a university is limited to 30 to 40 students, technology-based distance learning can support class sizes ranging from 100 to 200. And these in geographically dispersed areas, again spreading a wider net for the institutions. Secondly, since most of these courses happen in the evening or on weekends, the facilities and premises can be used for other purposes, including leasing out. Conversely, those that don’t have facilities can use ones that are available at those times.

A Global Solution?
Internationally, in regions, where the Gross Enrolment Ratio (GER) levels are usually below 15, distance education is seen as a viable option to increase the number of people getting higher education opportunities. Sub-Saharan Africa, for instance, has a GER of 6, and looks at distance learning very seriously as a way to push that figure up. While East Asia, matches up to the world average of 26, South Asia falls between Africa and East Asia at 11.

IGNOU, for instance, has a pan-African programme in management and education meant for 53 countries in the continent. Singapore-based online graduate school U21Global (see box), has affiliate universities from around the world, including Delhi University. U21Global has recently tied up with IGNOU as well. Internationally, collaborate-and-grow seems to be the model to go forward with.

Trends in India
To a large extent, distance education is the route for those looking to continue education or those who otherwise don't have access to higher education, to cover as many people under the ambit of higher education. Apart from the sheer game of pushing numbers, there are several other distance learning trends in India.

Corporate and institutional training is probably the biggest one. Executive and leadership programmes as well as specialised education for specific institutions form a big chunk of the distance learning agenda. Almost all institutions have corporate or institutional tie-ups. This is done through memoranda of understanding (MoUs) or joint ventures (JVs). For instance the JV between NIIT Imperia and ICICI Bank in the form of the Institute of Banking, Finance and Insurance (IBFI), and the MoU between IGNOU and the Indian Army, where the former provides professional certification to soldiers for several courses. These tie-ups go a long way in expanding the scope of existing institutions as well as helping them utilise their resources to the maximum. For some, in fact, this is the primary business model. Educomp and Liqvid, for instance. Both offer e-learning modules to corporate organisations in a range of areas.

U21Global also offers corporate training. Nick Hutton, CEO, tells us, “Many companies today understand the need for further education for their aspiring leaders. There is also a need to re-train their staff as business evolves quickly nowadays. Just as social media like Facebook and YouTube have changed the way a company presents itself to the public, business models and practices change rapidly too. Giving their staff the tool to excel in this ever-changing environment is the company’s best way to help itself. Our corporate clients recognise these needs and partner with us for their corporate training programmes.”

Specialised and varied courses are the other major trend. Even though management education still holds sway when it comes to distance learning in the higher education realm, a range of other subjects is also on offer. From language courses to poultry farming, communication and creative courses to chartered accountancy, there is rarely a course that isn’t offered by at least one institute or another, especially given the technology support. Even technical, laboratory-based courses are available, with virtual experiments and field interaction.

Success Factors
Paying equal attention to delivery and content and using resources efficiently are the critical success mantras, say experts. Partho Banerjee, President and Managing Director, Hughes Communication India Ltd elaborates, “Learner’s engagement, participation, interest, motivation and enthusiasm for learning are few of the fundamental things that one should keep in mind while designing a distance learning programme. Since the participants have to cope with both work and knowledge enhancement pressures, it is important that they see value in what they are learning.”

Using technology facilitates in taking this agenda further than it would have been otherwise possible.

For traditional institutions, ODE offers a viable expansion option as well as a way to appear ahead of the curve as far as global innovation trends are concerned. “The main reason for IIMK to opt for interactive distance learning is IIM Kozhikode's philosophy to innovate and experiment and its eagerness to be at the cutting edge of technology enhanced learning,” says Prof. Kumar.

How much does it add to the institute’s revenue base? According to The Survey of Distance Learning Programs in Higher Education, 2007-2008 edition, published by Primary Research Group, distance learning revenues in a sample of DL programmes grew by a mean of 15.52 percent in 2006. In India, the combined ODL enrolments in 2006-07 were over 2.3 million. Another way to look at it is this: India currently gets US$200 million revenue from online education (not limited to higher education) and this is slated to touch $1 billion by the end of 2010.

Ultimately, though, the true success of ODL in India will come when the NKC’s vision is realised—where anyone, anytime, anywhere can be connected to others through networks and access devices in a virtual space to receive education. The idea is to have an open mind and a clear strategy. Prof. Pillai summarises it as: “An open university is not about distance education alone. Our definition of an open university is that it is a university that is open to ideas, open to strategies, open to places, and ultimately, open to people."