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| The
total e-learning industry size in India is $700 million. It has
witnessed a growth of 25% in the last five years. Photo: Express Computer |
The education infrastructure in India is one of the largest in the world—it comprises of 1.4 million schools, 35,500 colleges and 600 universities. Yet this infrastructure is not sufficient to meet the education related needs of our geographically diverse and populous country. e-learning is now being looked at as one of the thrust areas for enabling learners to access high quality educational material even if they lack access to traditional classroom based teaching. “The total e-learning industry size in India is $700 million. It has witnessed a growth of 25% in the last five years,” says Gaurav Kumar, Associate Director, KPMG India. Many e-learning players have been catering to the overseas market, leveraging on cost arbitrage/ lesser development cost. “The domestic share in e-learning industry is around 20% and the rest is led by the overseas market. With higher internet penetration, we believe the industry has the potential to grow at more than 40-50% over the next five years,” Kumar adds.
R K Prasad, CEO and Co-founder, CommLab India, believes that the nature of e-learning being pursued by the corporate sector is markedly different from what the institutions of education are using. “In USA, the latter leads the former. In India it is the former that will lead, because the educational institutions are too staid and monolithic to take advantage of e-learning,” says Prasad. He was of the view that today, in India, there is much greater awareness about e-learning in the student community.
“The fact that out of the 2.8 million learners who have registered for Massive Open Online Courses (MOOCs) on the USA-based education platform Coursera, 8.8% of learners are from India, is a testimony to the growing popularity of e-learning. Many of those who have registered are professionals who are looking for an opportunity to upgrade their knowledge,” adds Prasad. CommLab India is offering a Learning Management System (LCMS), a software technology platform on which e-learning courseware is hosted and served to the learners. The company designs and develops custom (bespoke) e-learning courseware for different devices.
Corporate Training Through e-learning
Tata Interactive Systems (TIS) is in the business of providing technology-enabled learning solutions to corporations, universities, schools, publishers, and government institutions. The company has created immersive learning formats such as virtual 3D worlds, multiplayer simulations, gamification, learning nuggets and story-based learning. Ishrat Shums, Executive Vice President – Global Marketing & Proposal Design, Tata Interactive Systems, is of the view that the Indian e-learning market is full of promise. He says, “Corporates in India are driving the usage of e-learning through various learning and development programmes. High attrition coupled with expensive recruiting is leading to e-learning becoming the de facto standard in the industry.”
According to Ishrat Shums, many corporations are inclined to have engagements, which span across the entire learning value chain. This has led to a hike in the demand for offerings such as Training Needs Assessment, Performance Support Solutions, Learning Effectiveness Measurement, and few others. She is of the view that the rapid adoption of personal learning devices represents significant growth opportunities.
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Source: Express Computer
