‘Online education sector is likely to grow eightfold by 2021’
Raghav leads India and APAC business at Coursera. He is responsible for growing Coursera’s consumer and enterprise business in the region, and thereby bringing the world’s best education to learners. In this role, Raghav is responsible for driving impactful partnerships with leading corporate and government institutions. University of Illinoisurbana Champaign’s Master of Business Administration and HEC Paris’s Online Master’s in Innovation and Entrepreneurship.
Encouraged by the response, in March 2018 we added six new degree programs, taking the total to ten. The new ones being Arizona State University’s Master of Computer Science, University of Illinois at Urbanachampaign’s Master of Computer Science, University of London’s Bachelor of Computer Science, Imperial College London’s Global Master of Public Health, University of Michigan’s Master of Public Health and University of Michigan’s Master of Applied Data Science.
The degrees available through Coursera are highquality online degrees from top-ranked universities . They provide the required flexibility because they can be completed entirely online and are more affordable as compared to traditional options - typically a third of the cost of related degrees.
Unlike other online degree platforms, all degrees on Coursera are stackable, i.e., they are made up in part by open online courses that result in a certificate demonstrating mastery in a particular job skill. Learners can explore the open courses first and decide to go on to get a full degree while earning valuable credentials along the way. By expanding our degree offerings, we hope to give people the broadest possible choice of education with the lowest possible barriers. According to a recent report by Google along with KPMG, with the growing smartphones penetration and increasing data speed, the Indian online education sector is likely to grow eightfold to become $1.96 billion industry by 2021.
We are a platform that connects the world’s best educators and employers to bring life-transforming learning and credentials to people around the world. There are various components to how we deliver on that goal - a learner is looking for top quality content, delivered through the best learning experience, aimed at developing specific competencies, that finally culminates into a credential that employers recognize - if all addressed well, it produces better career outcomes.
Online education has become a major force in democratizing access to the best possible higher education the world has to offer. The cost of accessing higher education, especially in learning new age technologies and upcoming fields has been one of the biggest challenges learners encounter.
By allowing affordable access, e-learning platforms are enabling people to transform their lives through online education.
In India, online learning has seen promising results in terms of adoption, course completion, and learner benefits. Basis the growing acceptance by learners as well as employers, we believe that online learning will soon be on par with traditional means of education. In fact, today, Coursera certificates are the most posted badges on Linkedin . With increasing demand for credentials, our completion rate among paid learners is 60%. This percentage is much higher for Coursera for Business - our enterprise offering, where our enterprise customers make the platform available to their employees. In our degree programmes, the retention rate is as high as 93%.
However, course completion is not the primary objective, and it is not the only metric that should be focused upon. Of course, if online is a part of formal courses in universities, this number will go up. The platform has free courses where users can interact with the content, and there are those looking to understand topics like ‘blockchain’ or ‘machine learning.’ A learner comes to our platform and registers for a free course. For example, if a course is for 15 hours, they might spend two-three hours on it and then decide whether the content suits their interest, after which they may continue with the course or drop off.
To decrease the number of dropouts, the courses need to be flexible and stackable. People don’t want to put their careers on hold to go back to school. The vast majority of our degree students have jobs and families.
They can start applying what they learn from day 1 of classes on the job. The future is in a “learn to earn model” where students start getting value immediately from their education.
Besides this, the content and platform need to deliver a great learning experience to the people. At Coursera we have invested in technology innovation - Live video sessions, community building on Slack, and new mentorship tests are all ways we are making the learning experience extraordinarily rigorous, social and scalable at the same time. A robust mobile experience is also a huge draw for learners - over 70% of degree students use our mobile app for coursework. Our business model does not require recognition from any government institutions. We partner with the world’s top universities and the educational institutions to offer online education. Anyone from across the globe can access these programmes and enroll based on their interest. In India, we have partnered with ISB.