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The requirement for remote learning and remote teaching in the BFSI industry

The requirement for remote learning and remote teaching at both levels differ from each other owing to the nature of the participants.

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CIOL Bureau
New Update
remote learning and remote teaching

Around the world, educational institutions are one of the first establishments, which shut their doors on the outbreak of coronavirus (COVID-19) in each country/region. Authorities see this as a major step to contain the spread of the pandemic since social distancing is the only solution to prevent the virus. For institutions, most of the post-winter vacation academic activities happen in January, February, and March. The disruption of classes in these months is a great loss.

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However, institutions around the globe and in India are now tapping the possibilities of remote learning and teaching as an alternative to classroom sessions. The government of India has asked schools, colleges, and universities to explore online education to compensate for the classes missing during the lockdown.

Technological development opens abundant opportunities to transform the learning and teaching process into digital mode. The majority of the people now use 4G-enabled smartphones, which allows video conferencing with multiple individuals at a time. Furthermore, there are many paid and free platforms, software or applications provide classroom facilities.

For example, Google Classroom helps teachers and students to share and distribute files. Whereas Microsoft Team has lots of add-on apps, those can be used while video conferencing. Zoom Video Communications and Skype are some other useful tools. Some institutions own e-learning and teaching platforms to enable live and continuous education. Therefore, remote teaching and learning is no longer a hectic task.

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In the BFSI industry, learning and teaching occur in two levels. Firstly, preparing fresh talents for job-readiness, and the second one is continuous learning or upskilling/reskilling at the individual or organisational level by working professionals. The requirement for remote learning/teaching at both levels differ from each other owing to the nature of the participants.

Remote teaching for fresh talents

Institutions in the BFSI industry are mainly professional training institutions, where the students or participants are prepared in respective profiles with intensive training including classroom sessions, workshops, mock branch training, on-job training, and internship. Over 60 per cent of these programs consist of training rather than classroom sessions. The crucial question here arises is how would remote teaching/learning help these programs?

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E-learning mode would be useful for the classroom sessions but for practical training, the remote mode is not good.

With these interactive webinars, faculty members ensure the maximum outcome. But due to network connectivity issues, students especially those from rural areas miss these webinars, attest faculty members. We can overcome this hurdle once the entire geography cover under high-speed internet services. At the same time, we are yet to find a solution for practical sessions.

Remote learning in BFSI

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BFSI sector is the most dynamic industry with quick changes along with the technological developments. This impacts the job profiles too. The automation and advent of data science, artificial intelligence, machine learning, and others, on one hand, reduce human intervention and create most of the jobs obsolete, on the other hand, create opportunities for new and specialized roles.

Here comes the importance of reskilling and upskilling of the existing labour force in the BFSI industry. Learning is a continuous process. The working professionals at banks, insurance companies, and financial service sectors need to undertake the continuous learning process to learn new skills to remain relevant in the industry. Remote learning facilities become helpful for working folks to enrol such programs without quitting their jobs.

Companies ask their staff, who work from home as part of COVID-19 regulations, to utilise the time to learn or acquire skills by enrolling online courses. In the normal situation too, most of the companies made learning a new course as a desired outcome from the staff by adding this as one of the key performance indicators.

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This way remote learning has become a trend and e-learning is now a fast-growing industry. According to the 2017 report of KPMG and Google, e-learning in India is set to grow to $1.96 billion business and the user base will reach 1.9 million by 2021. With the push from the government and compulsion like the current situation, the growth may be accelerated further.

Plenty of challenges

Robin Bhowmik, Chief Business Officer, Manipal Global Academy of BFSI Robin Bhowmik, Chief Business Officer, Manipal Global Academy of BFSI

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As explained above, remote learning/teaching in the BFSI industry has many prospects and challenges. The first one is the quality of content provided in e-learning platforms. Since there is no regulator to ensure the quality of the content and teaching methods, many online programs are not up to the expectation. The participants find reality only after enrolling in the course. By that time, he/she might have spent money and end up learning/acquiring no useful skill or knowledge. So, the e-learning industry needs a regulator at each platform level or industry level to monitor the content and method of teaching.

Secondly, the value of certificates is high in the industry. Therefore, the participants should make sure that the certificate at the end of the program has industry value and provided by the reputed institution or authority. The alumni should reap the benefits of the legacy created by the alma mater. Institutes can assign industry regulators to make rules and regulations to ensure authenticity to the certification.

In sum, remote teaching and learning in the BFSI industry are possible and requirements are increasing. But it is challenging as well, especially for practice-oriented training. It is the responsibility of the participants, institutions, and industry to resolve these challenges to cater the future demands.