ONLINE DEGREE COURSES in Higher Education Institution’s (HEI’s)

Earlier the Online system was used for certificate courses, diploma courses, advance diploma courses but with Budget 2020, there seems to be a paradigm shift in the thinking. UGC is now considering online delivery system even for Degree courses and that too for HEI’s and that too consider on par with regular degrees. This is the new buzz word for many established and recognised Institutions. How will this be accepted by the students, will the Quality be at par with current systems. Looks like the execution system including assessment system will be very much on the radar to ensure the learning outcomes are met as planned and there is no compromise on the quality.
In fact in the recent Budget 2020, there was an emphasis on Online degree courses being offered to the top 100 Institutions in the National Institutional Ranking Framework (NIRF) The focus seems to be now on Convenience, comfort and Versatility. In view of an upsurge of Online courses, we need to look at couple of core issues of Online courses in details. Some of which are given below:

1.FEASISBILITY FOR TECHNICAL COURSES: Online course execution may not be a great challenges to Non-technical students but will it be possible to courses requiring lot of practical laboratory related work wherein Students are required a minimum no of practicals in their respective subjects . How this aspect will be tackled is a huge challenge. Will IIT be able to churn out same high-quality students as is being done for regular course.

2.TEACHING PEDAGOGY: There will be limitations in few of the teaching pedagogy like Role play, Group discussions, Workshops or for that matter even a group cases study analysis wherein a physical classroom may be more effective in comparison to ONLINE courses.

3.QUALITY STANDARDS: Apart from the Technical courses quality as stated earlier, even the other courses quality standards need to be reviewed in view of the limitations of the Teaching Pedagogy. There is always a benchmark established by regular courses, will the online courses be able to meet those high standards.

4.EMPLOYERS ACCEPTANCE: The moot point for any higher education system is the placement at the end of the course, will ONLINE courses also command the same respect and credibility as that of regular courses. This aspect needs a thorough validation before dishing out these online courses

5.CULTURAL CHANGE: This aspect of a change in the culture of learning is going to be the most challenging one for Parents since they have been used to their children admitted to residential courses or for that matter a classroom type of teaching . How will the new method of teaching be viewed and accepted by parents is another challenge. Also the parents will also be convinced on the quality standards of this new learning method. Probably, we have just about accepted the fun learning by KIDS through various hugely advertised BYJU’s learning etc but have we grown up to accept Teenagers and Adults too now able to learn everything online or are we ready to make a shift in our mindset from a typical Teachers teaching systems .

All above points do throw open a plethora of thoughts, prejudices in everyone’s mind -the student, parent, teacher and the employer and most importantly this becomes a basis of acceptance at all levels.