MOOC Courses: The New Normal in Indian Education

Massive Open Online Course (MOOC) has been shaping the Indian education system in the last decade. Many people are looking towards MOOC courses as an alternative to the regular courses. The pandemic has further boosted this with more and more people studying online across the globe due to the restrictions by the governments across the globe. 

The MOOC courses have proved to be transforming both the urban and rural India alike and making it a viable medium for learning to all irrespective of the age. The MOOC courses are getting popular because of its capacity to bring international standards of learning to all through online platforms.

The past decade has been redefining online education in India, the students who are seeking skill-based education to increase their opportunities are ending up enrolling to MOOC courses that are relevant to their skills and interest. The MOOC courses remove barriers of physical education and even the people from remotest parts of the world can enroll to MOOC courses and can get themselves skilled and employable.

Relevance of MOOC in India

The MOOC courses are changing the education pace in India and the temporary closures of colleges in the country due to Covid 19 pandemic restrictions has further boosted the MOOC courses reachability in India. The sudden and unexpected demand for the educating children and barriers of digital divide in the country gave rise to the increase in demand for MOOC courses.

Many children in rural areas who are unable to reach the schools, ended up enrolling for MOOC courses online. The internet penetration despite blockages should be appreciated for making MOOC courses popular in India. 

Further the New Education Policy 2020 (NEP) made strong efforts to boost skill based online MOOC education India. So, it can be anticipated that MOOC education will be the new normal for the future in India and NEP 2020 also emphasises on encouraging MOOC education in the next decades to come 

NEP and MOOC Education

The National Education Policy (NEP) 2020 has made several reasonable and reformative steps towards encouragement of online or MOOC education. With technology and commendable efforts from the government will ensure better penetration of MOOC education. The MOOC education plays a vital role for all the children residing in remotest corners of the country to get educated. India is a wide geographic country and MOOC education can act as a saviour for all the children living in remotest areas of the country. The geographical barriers cannot hinder the education for these talented children with MOOC education.

The NEP 2020 has been striving towards creating a reformative change in the issues of providing equitability, inclusivity, accessibility, exploratory and experimental learning etc. The MOOC form of education can be the best answer to all these questions

MOOC for Personalised learning

The MOOC courses are being widely accepted by both young and old people. The MOOC education provides the person an excellent platform for getting upskilled by learning new skills. We all know that gaining new skills is the only way to progress in a career and MOOC courses help people to gain skills with no compromises. Today, with technology penetration anybody can learn from anywhere through a mobile or a laptop without any compromise and get upskilled. 

The popularity of the MOOC courses further forced the higher education institutes to set up infrastructures that equipped both online, offline and blended methods of learning. By adopting this at the perfect time the higher education institutes refined the education system by catering to the needs of the hour. The MOOC system made this possible and today the children are getting advantages of both offline and online education. 

New-age students and MOOC courses

MOOC education has been widely accepted across the globe and the government is making all efforts to encourage MOOC systems. The online universities today are also removing the barriers of cost, location and access, providing the highest-quality, stackable learning experiences including new-age and innovative programmes under the MOOC model. The MOOC platform has been further designed to support both educators and learners. 

The MOOC platform has been a mutual win-win platform for many passionate educators. Many passionate educators are seeing MOOC platforms as an excellent medium to share their knowledge to the candidates across the globe beyond the physical barriers present.

MOOC platforms India

India has many popular MOOC platforms that are known to provide quality education for passionate learners.  The ‘SWAYAM’  is the government MOOC platform that also allows students in India to earn academic credits online. Many private MOOC platforms like Unacademy, SimpliLearn, Byju’s, Vedanta, Coursera, Great Lakes Learning, Symbiosis Online Learning etc have been very successful in providing the best education and learning experience for both young and adults.

The government of India under its Skill India and Sarva Shiksha Abhiyan initiatives has partnered with AISECT to come up with its own MOOCs study platforms. The Ministry of Higher Education Government of India has tied up with many international universities to offer more online courses to the learners across the country.  The government has tied up with many tech giants like Infosys, TCS, Wipro to provide certification courses for skill based learning and making them more employable across different sectors of the economy.