FEBRUARY 1: At the press conference that followed the AV Birla group's acquisition of a management control in US-based LearningByte International, Rajiv Tandon, the president & CEO of the e-learning company began his presentation with an interesting quotation. "The next killer application for the Internet is going to be education. Education over the Internet is going to be so big it is going to make e-mail usage look like a rounding error..." -- John Chambers, CEO of Cisco. That the education & training (E&T) companies in the country are convinced about this eventuality can be easily gauged from their efforts to claim a share of the e-learning space. Take NIIT, for instance. The company acknowledges that the Internet is a key driver for its businesses and that it has caused a fundamental shift in products, markets and technologies. It has already launched its NetVarsity initiative which enables learners the flexibility to learn through the internet at their own time, pace and place. The portal can be accessed at the URL "www.niitnetvarsity.com".
NIIT's Microsoft online training enables students to prepare for various Microsoft certification examinations through the use of computer based training and net-based learning services. For its corporate clients, the company has launched eNABLE-IT, an integrated enterprise-wide IT training solution. The solution relies substantially on Internet-based learning methodologies.
Aptech has already launched its net-based corporate training programme and is now readying itself to launch a wide-interest education portal for the individual learner. As the company's executive director (E&T) Pramod Khera says, "The Internet offers several advantages against a typical classroom training programme for working executives. An internet-based training program enables the learner to merely concentrate on those areas that he is specifically interested in. Thus, the net is able to offer a much higher degree of personalisation than would otherwise have been possible.
Not only as far as content is concerned but also as regards to the time-table. Unlike classroom training where one would have to present at fixed times, one can learn at one's own convenience. Besides, internet-training also works out to be more cost-effective." But then, there are a number of disadvantages associated with the internet as an instruction medium, too. These, however, do not apply as much to adult learning as to teaching children who need constant supervision. Perhaps the biggest disadvantage with using the net to impart education is its inability to monitor how honestly one has been taking one's lessons.
Imagine taking an examination at home over the net. The examiner would have no way of knowing who is actually taking the examination. Therefore, for starters, the net would be most useful to impart training to people who are merely interested in learning but not the resulting certification.
For students who would be interested in certification and need constant supervision, classroom teaching would continue to be more relevant for a long time to come.
Copyright © 2000 Indian Express Newspapers (Bombay) Ltd.