Within a higher education system plagued with outdated curriculums, faculty shortages and inadequate capacity, the Moocs revolution offers a magical opportunity to Indian students to access free-of-charge supplementary enrichment courses offered by the world’s most renowned universities: Swati Roy & Summiya Yasmeen By all accounts it’s raining Moocs (massive open online courses) in India. Moocs are open online study programmes offered free-of-charge by content aggregators and reputable/aspirational higher education institutions to digitally connected students worldwide. This out-of-the-blue philanthropy of some of the world’s most expensive universities — Harvard, MIT, Dartmouth, etc — offering selected courses gratis, has generated huge excitement worldwide, especially in developing countries where most higher education syllabuses and curriculums are under-developed if not obsolete. According to the California-based Coursera Inc, the world’s leading Moocs aggregator which offers study programmes of 140 top-ranked universities to 18 million registered users globally, India with 1.4 million learners is tied with China as its second largest customer nation. Similarly, edX — a Moocs platform founded by Harvard University and MIT — spokespersons estimate that India contributes 10 percent of its total learners i.e, 598,000, making it edX’s second largest customer nation after the US. Currently, this academic bounty is being showered on learners by over 40 Moocs providers offering online courses of 500 universities to 35 million students worldwide, including 2 million in India. Although registration and study is free, certification is chargeable. With Moocs proving popular with students across the subcontinent, well-reputed indigenous higher ed institutions are also beginning to offer free online courses. On January 29, the premier Indian Institute of Management (IIM), Bangalore launched its online certificate series — Fundamentals of Business Management. On January 16, the newly established Bennett University, Noida signed up with edX to offer edX programmes to its first batch of students which begin classes in July. Earlier last year, the Indian Institute of Technology (IIT), Mumbai launched its own online platform to deliver courses while a consortium headed by IIT-Kanpur introduced a series of courses for the agriculture sector (AgMoocs). The National Programme on Technology Enhanced Learning — a joint initiative of the seven IITs (Bombay, Delhi, Madras, Kanpur, Kharagpur, Guwahati, Roorkee) and Indian Institute of Science, Bangalore — launched the NPTEL-Mooc last year. Nothing loath, the Union human resource development (HRD) ministry has also jumped onto the Moocs bandwagon by launching its own platform Swayam (Study Webs for Active-Learning for Young Aspiring Minds) under which 500 online courses are scheduled to be rolled out in April. Within a higher education system plagued with outdated curriculums, faculty shortages and inadequate capacity, the Moocs revolution offers a magical opportunity to Indian students to sign up for supplementary higher education enrichment courses offered by several of the world’s most renowned universities. “The enthusiastic response of Indian learners to online learning, efforts to build digital content repositories, certifications and learning platforms, mark a strategic inflection point for Indian education. I believe that learning through Moocs will enable all Indians who want to learn, earn, teach or innovate,…
