It’s e-learning all the way

Today, 23 per cent of all higher education enrolments in India is in distance education with 13 national and state open universities and 106 institutions. As per a McKinsey-Nasscom report, the Union Government plans to increase it to 40 per cent by 2010. This not only throws up enormous opportunities for distance learning institutes but also poses challenges to the traditional campus-based learning institutes. Those that successfully make the transition to the Internet-con nected world will reap the benefits of the enormous growth ahead.

Consulting, technology services and outsourcing firms such as 24x7 Learning are now busy enabling organisations to be successful globally by upgrading their workforce. For instance, 24x7 works closely with companies to identify core business problems that arise due to skill gaps that exist in their organisation. These are gaps that impact productivity and slow down individual as well as organisational growth.

Some of the enablers for 24x7 Learning today include infrastructure availability (40 times growth in broadband access and 360 per cent growth in Internet subscribers) and 40 per cent of all higher education through distance learning is the only viable medium.

Says Karthik K.S., CEO of 24x7 Learning, “E-learning adoption rates have increased significantly in the last couple of years. Most IT-ITES companies use it as a preferred mode of training. In academia too, e-learning is an ideal mode of education. It is an exciting time for e-learning solutions providers now because there are a lot of enabling factors that are conducive to the adoption of solutions.”

The solutions are designed to meet the needs of organisations keeping in mind their culture, infrastructure, business objectives and the geographical spread. 24x7 Learning specialises in creating custom enterprise learning platforms that manage formal, informal, offline and online learning.

SkillBridge is an employability enhancement programme that gives students relevant IT and behavioural skills training. The challenge faced today by students in traditional educational institutes in general and distance learning programmes in particular is access to the resources they need to study and research.

Referenceware is another offering that delivers collections of premium reference content in a searchable, web-based environment. Students and teachers are promised full access to the complete unabridged contents of thousands of business, technical and financial books from the best names in book publishing.

BINDU GOPAL RAO