Let me begin by quoting a few statistics from a recently published report of the Ministry of Human Resource Development (HRD).
Gross Enrolment Ratio (GER), which is the ratio of total enrolment in Higher Education in the 18-23 years age group, as a percentage of the eligible population in that age group, has moved up to 23.5 % in 2014-15 from 21.5 % in 2012-13. For men, the ratio is 24.5 % and it is 22.7 % for women.
There were 33.3 million students enrolled in 757 universities in 2014-15, as against 32.3 million enrolled in 723 universities in 2013-14.
While the numbers can become overwhelming, it is easy to see that these statistics augur well for the country. If this trend continues, it is possible for the country to achieve the target of 30 % GER by 2020. The next target would be a GER of around 45 per cent, which is prevalent in most developed countries.
The target may be ambitious, but there are a host of issues, which need to be addressed as well – access, quality, shortage of teachers, outdated curriculum etc. In this maelstrom, will digital technology make a significant impact?
There has been a paradigm shift in the thinking process of the role of digital technology in higher education. Traditionally, it was meant to provide IT infrastructure and support all the process and routine functions. Its role has changed and it is now seen as critical for providing a digital learning experience to students.
“Student-centricity” and “delighting the student” with an amazing learning experience in the lifecycle of higher education are the new mantras of digital solutions and service providers. This fundamentally means that technology is no longer in the foreground and the centre of attention is the “learner”.
With this rapidly shifting landscape, there are three broad trends, which will make a significant impact on higher education:
1. Personalisation
2. Big Data
3. Mobility
PERSONALISATION
The traditional learning methodology was by prescription and adherence. Students were given a prescribed curriculum and had to study within the boundaries of the path laid down by the various subjects to ultimately obtain a degree.
With the use of digital resources, personalisation allows creation of custom pathways for learning. Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) has experimented with breaking its courses down into modules and then enabling students to reassemble the modules into a personalised educational pathway.
It is akin to creating a “playlist” in iTunes.
Before the opening of the iTunes store on April 28, 2003 the only choice for a music lover was to buy an entire CD of songs, even if the music lover wanted to listen to only one song. iTunes allows music lovers to pick and choose songs from various albums, to create a personalised playlist. Within a decade of its launch, Apple had announced that more than 25 billion songs were downloaded and by now, probably, more than 50 billion songs have been downloaded. This is a staggering number and has truly shaken up the music industry, giving consumers a unique listening experience. One of the clear indications of this churn is the recent press report suggesting that the iconic music store of Mumbai, “Rhythm House” will shut down soon.
Like a playlist, why can’t a student formulate a customised, multi-institutional pathway to a degree? Can a student do one subject from H.R. College, another from N.M. College and a third from St. Xaviers’ College? Or, can a student do one subject from Mumbai University, another from Delhi University and a third from Bengaluru University? And, eventually, can a student do multiple subjects from universities across the world?
Traditionally, the learning process and the eventual conferring of a degree happened in a single institution. But now, with all the digital possibilities, students should have the ability to aggregate and disaggregate subjects and courses. And more importantly, they should be able to control the pace of learning by accelerating or decelerating, depending on their individual requirements. When all of this coalesces, a student will have complete “personalisation” of his learning path to a degree.
BIG DATA
Big Data is large volume of data, structured and unstructured, which is difficult to process using traditional databases and software. A lot of IT investment in the corporate sector is going into Big Data computing, which reveals patterns, trends and associations.
There is an enormous amount of data, which gets generated in higher education institutions and the time is ripe to use Big Data techniques to mine this information and come up with meaningful patterns and trends.
Big Data can create customised reports for all the stakeholders in higher education – personalised assistance to students, dashboards to the teachers on the learning paths, reports to the heads of institutions and compliance charts to the regulators. The broad institutional goals and targets can be measured and analysed periodically. Importantly, analytics of a student’s learning path can enable intervention at an early stage.
Big Data can do the unthinkable – homework assignments that learn from students; courses tailored to fit individual students and textbooks that talk back. This is beyond online courses and MOOCs that are currently on offer. We are now looking at the education landscape of tomorrow, powered by Big Data.
A seminal work on the power of Big Data is a book written by Viktor Mayer-Schonberger and Kenneth Cukier, titled “Learning with Big Data – The Future of Education”. The authors have articulated how the ever-increasing amounts of data and its analysis will have an influence on the conduct of higher education. They have also stated how the fascinating changes are happening in measuring students’ progress and how data can be used to improve education for everyone, in real time, both online and offline.
MOBILITY
The mobile phone is now a ubiquitous device. It is with everyone and everywhere, doing multiple tasks from listening to songs to taking pictures. Talking on phone is only one of its myriad functions, and certainly not the main one.
In India, the number of mobile phone subscribers has crossed 1 billion, making it only the second country after China to have achieved this landmark. The launch of cheaper smartphones, low call rates and intense competition has accelerated the pace of growth. Interestingly, the number of smartphones has crossed 170 million and is growing at 26 per cent CAGR.
Technology, which immerses the mobile phone as its centerpiece, will become a key piece of technology in learning and teaching. Mobile technology gives unprecedented freedom to students and teachers from the constraints of the IT campus of the Institution. Now learning can happen beyond the precincts of the institution at a time and pace convenient to the learner.
There is an enormous amount of online content now available on the Internet. A teacher can make available a properly curated content to a learner and then measure and track progress. Similarly, the learner can supplement or even substitute his classroom learning, collaborate with other learners and communicate with the teacher – all of this without the constraint of time and place – on his mobile phone.
With the advent of 4G and deeper penetration of smartphones, mobile based learning is likely to make a big impact on higher education. Starting with a blended model, it will eventually keep increasing its sphere of impact and influence.
An interesting case study on the application of digital technology to higher education is the launch of the Minerva Project by Ben Nelson. Minerva Project (www. minerva.kgi.edu) is a for-profit company founded by Ben Nelson, whose goal is to provide Ivy League education at a faction of the price. The tuition fee at Minerva for an undergraduate course (called “graduate” course in India) is USD 10,000, which is a fourth of the tuition fees at Ivy League Institutions like Harvard and Columbia.
In this four-year course, the first year is at San Francisco, followed by the other years in seven cities across the world. There is no physical campus for learning. Each class has less than 20 students and lessons are delivered online in an interactive manner and are recorded. All students are visible onscreen. Professors are prohibited from droning for more than 5 minutes. Students are evaluated not only on how they participate, but also how effectively they think. There are no exams.
Ben Nelson has proclaimed, “We are building a perfect university. That’s our goal” .
Digital trends have made a huge impact on the corporate world. Sectors like banking have embraced the digital medium like a “fish takes to water”. In contrast, the education sector has been a laggard, particularly higher education. With the rapid pace of change, it is an opportune time for higher education to leapfrog its adoption and make a significant impact on the learning process and the learner.
