India: E-learning's knight in shining armour

Shashwat Chaturvedi

MUMBAI: Case Study I: Post 9/11, the aviation industry has become very sensitive to security issues. The governmental agencies in the U.S. have forged strict guidelines on different security procedures. Airlines have the added responsibility of educating all their employees on the latest procedures, routines and drills. It can be quite a tedious job using traditional means like, assembling employees, training on procedures, testing understanding, etc. Extraordinary circumstances demand extraordinary solutions; many of these airlines have turned to computer based training (CBT) for simple and cost-effective solutions. Currently, an e-learning company in Mumbai is designing a multi million-dollar project for one such airline.

Case Study II: The United Nations plays numerous roles through its diverse divisions across the globe, be it dispensing education, food aid or fighting human rights abuses. Training hundreds UN activist based in different countries could be a nightmare. But not so, the premier agency has turned to technology for solution and has hired an e-learning company in India to develop training material that can be deployed on the Internet and accessed everywhere through a customized learning management system (LMS).

Innumerable companies are turning to e-learning to deliver tailor made solutions to meet their training requirements, be it an enterprise software the company is implementing or updating the finance function on the latest taxation norms. E-learning delivers the goods when hundreds of people need to be trained in an efficient manner. Education market and corporate training are the key drivers behind the success of e-learning.

In The Beginning, There Was CBT

Remember the good old typing tutors that were to be found on every alternate machine running DOS or Basic. In a way, these tutors were the grandpas of e-learning, technically known as asynchronous learning, wherein the user can dictate the pace of learning. They created a veritable buzz in the market; people were amazed at the new learning mechanism. From there on, there were scores and scores of CBTs available on CD-ROMs, be it on FoxPro program or even soft skills like people management. “While CBT was always there, the term e-learning was coined sometime in 1995 to encompass the different modes of delivering, be it Internet, Intranet, CD-ROMs, etc.” says Subrat Mohanty, CEO, Hurix Systems.

E-learning scores over traditional forms of learning in many ways. The principal reasons for the spread of e-learning are uniformity, easily update ability, cost effectiveness, etc. Harish Joshy, vice president, Lionbridge, adds to the list, “The most basic benefit is self-paced learning or anytime learning. Also, in an e-learning environment, one can have inputs from different experts, which is not possible in the typical classroom scenario.”

It is also a well-researched fact that people grasp information more readily in the audio-video format. Does that mean e-learning will herald the end of classroom learning? Disagrees Harish, he adds, “E-learning in a way complements classroom learning, reduces its role. E-learning and classroom learning together can bring about holistic learning.”

The Big Bang

Things changed dramatically at the turn of the millennium; with the near ubiquitous reach of Internet and ever increasing bandwidth, it was possible to deliver high definition media rich content. E-learning embraced Internet like none other. Courses were developed that could be dispensed from the Internet.

It lead to John Chambers, president and CEO, Cisco, dub e-learning in the year 2000 as the “next big killer application,” he went on to add, “Education over the Internet is going to be so big it is going to make email usage look like a rounding error.” It has just been 5 years since John prophesized the success of e-learning. Five years is too less a time for this prophecy to come true, email is still the second best thing people do on the Internet (searching for information is the first). The change is happening though, byte-by-byte the education market is changing, and India is leading this charge.

Like any other cost-cutting measure, companies in the U.S. and U.K. were outsourcing their project to Indian companies. India had two distinct advantages, language skills and technical proficiency. English is the de facto lingua franca in India, and the accomplishments in IT are to many to be repeated. Steadily over the last decade India has become a force to reckon with in the e-learning space.

Jay Sitaram, founder, Praxis Technologies says, “In E-learning, I really don't think there is any other brand except India. If the work is not being done in the U.S. or the U.K., it is being done India. In the IT space, there is competition for India's dominance, but in E-learning it is just us.”

India Awakes

How big is the e-learning pie? No one seems to have a clear answer, the guesstimates range from so many hundred millions to many billions of dollars.

According to IDC forecasts, the E-learning market, which was about $6.5 billion in 2003, will increase to more than $21 billion by 2008. The global market for corporate E-learning will grow nearly 27% compounded annually over the next four years (Source: New IDC Report Dec 30, 2004.)

But one thing is certain; the party is big enough to accommodate quite many players. There are scores of Indian companies operating out of Mumbai, Pune, Chennai and other cities. The bigger Indian players are Tata Interactive System, Hurix, NIIT, Maximize Learning, Brainvisa, Praxis Technologies, etc. Lionbridge has also become a big player in the marketplace after acquiring an Indian e-learning firm Mentorix in 2003. Foreign players like Accenture, Element K also have established their development centers in India. Not only that, IT companies like Wipro, Sify and IBM are also jumping into the fray and are ramping up their facilities in a big way.

The projects coming to India can be categorized under two heads, educational ones and corporate training. Big time publishers like McGraw-Hill and Thomson Netg are biggest and most sought after clients (their projects running into millions). On the corporate side, every second MNC is in some ways or the other using e-learning.

The Next Wave

Currently most of the courses in the E-learning market are based on Macromedia Flash, which provides a rich multimedia platform for development. The acquisition of Macromedia by Adobe has also raised the hopes of a slew of products being introduced in the industry. Software tools like Captivate and Breeze are very popular in the industry. On the emerging trends Albert Lewis, Head (Product/Technology Strategy & Business Excellence), Tata Interactive Systems, says, “It would be interesting to see how Microsoft's Acrylic will substitute the traditional Flash world. Macromedia's Flex is also in early deployment but the mandate on it is not yet out.”

All the companies unequivocally express their support for mobile learning or m-learning as it is called. Many of these companies are currently working on pilot projects for m-learning. With the introduction of Flash Lite by Macromedia, now high-end multimedia work is also possible on hand-held devices.

Adds Albert, “Estimates from a Brandon-Hall 2003 Research Report suggest a $250 million market size for m-learning in 2003 growing to $5 billion by 2006. M-learning applications can vary, some instances are: mobile assessments on hand-held to complement classroom training, hand-held 'reference-ware' applications and more recently performance support/knowledge reinforcement learning objects on hand-held.”

India Learning?

Ironically, while India is the undisputed leader in the e-learning services domain, e-learning has yet pick-up in the domestic market. With a literacy rate close to 60 per cent, there is tremendous scope for e-learning in the country. Says, Subrat from Hurix, “The traditional method is not an option as we do not have that kind of infrastructure, e-learning will democratize education in India.”

A couple of players are working in the domestic space, a reputed university in South India is also migrating its courses on to the e-learning platform but nothing much beyond it is taking shape. Jay from Praxis opines, “The opportunity is not growing as fast due to modest computer penetration and low Internet bandwidth. It is going to take some time before we get there.”

That is the story thus far. So if you are a writer, a software professional, a graphic artist or a management professional, living in one of the metros; chances are you must have received an email or a call from the headhunters offering a job at one of e-learning companies. The e-learning companies are hiring big time, poaching from themselves or fighting hard to retain people. The salaries of the e-learning professionals are headed skywards. The market is booming and if the head honchos are to be believed, things are going to get only better and bigger in the time to come.