MOOCs: Education for All– On Going Development in India

Abstract

It is evident, that the number of qualified teachers is less but the number of students willing to learn new technologies is increasing tremendously. Therefore, it is desired that alternative methods should be adopted to reduce the gap between the required number of qualified teachers and the actually available. As the technology is evolving rapidly, Massively Open Online Courses (MOOCs) appears to be an imminent concept which allows the students to use the IT infrastructure to learn while sitting at their home or workplace. MOOCs help the students to nurture problem-solving capabilities in them with the help of a plethora of online courses in diverse fields. Learners can choose courses of their interest and acquire a certificate of the same. This paper explores the concept and benefits of MOOCs in today’s scenario, its advantages like freedom from geographic boundaries, flexibility, optimal cost, better educational outcomes. Further, this paper highlights challenges and limitations towards implementing MOOCs such as the dearth of infrastructure in developing countries, absence of proper assessment method, invalidity of such courses in conventional degree level programs, lack of practical sessions, and dropout rate. Significant developments in the field of MOOCs are ongoing in India under the banner of Ministry of Human Resource Development’s project SWAYAM (Study Webs of Active-Learning for Young Aspiring Minds). Nature Journal survey has shown that India ranked second in the world to access MOOCs services. Indian Institute of Bombay and Indian Institute of Kharagpur started a program called T10KT (Train 10 Thousand (K) Teachers) to conduct large-scale teachers training and E-learning awareness program. This paper wraps up with some other developments implementing MOOCs in India with some pragmatic case studies.