Scaling is a challenge that Indian education faces, says Coursera CEO Rick Levin

July 23, 2016 11:38 pm | Updated October 18, 2016 02:17 pm IST

Rick Levin.

Rick Levin.

India is the second biggest market for online education firm Coursera. In an interview, CEO Rick Levin talks about the opportunities and challenges in India.

What has Couresera’s progress been since it began operations?

In just four years, Coursera has reached over 20 million registered learners with over 1.6 million in India, now our second largest market. This huge demand is a clear result of a widening skills gap in the country.

Online learning through platforms like Coursera provide an efficient, flexible, and affordable solution for Indian students who are interested in pursuing careers in these high-demand fields.

Your plans for India?

One of the most exciting changes on Coursera has been the development of larger, more meaningful certificate programs for people who are serious about advancing their careers. Last year, we moved from offering just courses to a series of courses called ‘Specializations’ that help people build mastery in a specific skill such as Scala programming or digital marketing. This year, I’m excited to move into the degree space. We have two fully accredited degree programs — an MBA and a Master’s degree in data science from the University of Illinois.

Poor completion rates plague Massive Open Online Courses (MOOCs). How do you plan to address it?

The completion rates for MOOCs that were reported early on were misleading in many ways. Enrolling in many online courses is as easy as clicking a button — so a majority of those clicks were from people exploring courses with no intention of completing them.

Among Coursera learners today who commit to taking and completing a course by paying for or by applying for financial aid, over 50 per cent do complete the course. This completion rate has steadily improved over the past few years, and we are continuing to work on improving our learning experience so that we can provide committed learners with the structure and support that they need to finish their courses.

Companies such as Udacity have moved towards a paid services model by offering nano-degrees and a job guarantee which they are introducing in India. How does Coursera plan to compete ?

Coursera’s Specializations are very similar to a nano-degree in that they are series of courses designed to build mastery in high demand career skills. Specializations are developed by world-class professors and result in certificates from renowned universities like University of London, Duke University, or Johns Hopkins University. ISB in India just launched its first Specialization on Coursera, Introduction to Financial Markets.

The impact that these online credentials are having is quite real. In a 2015 survey of Indians who had completed courses on Coursera with the intention of improving professionally, 90 per cent reported some kind of benefit.

Making alternative courses recognised is key. How do you plan to handle it?

Employers in India and around the world are starting to recognise the value of alternative credentials like Coursera Certificates. The most prominent Indian example is Axis Bank, which recently partnered with Coursera to provide training for several thousand employees in skills like leadership and data analytics. And just last month, we announced a partnership with IBM India, wherein that company will source high-potential entrepreneurs for its Global Entrepreneur program from the Full Stack Web Development Specialization on Coursera.

The world is changing fast, and the best companies are recognising quickly that online learning is a whole new and scalable way to grow the pool of talent.

The Indian government is also planning to have its online-based education plan under SWAYAM platform. Your comments.

I’m encouraged by the Indian government’s effort to bring credibility to online education through the SWAYAM program by offering transferable credit. By moving in this direction, the Indian government will help shift perceptions about online courses in general and lead more Indians to use online courses as serious credentials not only in education but on job applications and resumes.

Are you planning to enhance learning outcomes and experience?

We are committed to providing an outstanding experience for learners everywhere. For example, our platform team at Coursera is continually working on improving our site loading speed and performance over low-bandwidth connections, an issue that is particularly prevalent in India.

This summer we are also in the midst of testing and implementing a number of platform changes to improve engagement and completions. For example, just this month we are rolling out a new dashboard that helps you track your progress through a course much more intuitively. We are also making a big effort to increase the number of course mentors. These are people who have taken the course and are volunteering to help others who are new to the material.

What challenges do you see in the Indian education system? How can they be addressed?

Scaling is the number one challenge that India’s education system faces. The Indian government has set an ambitious goal of increasing university enrolment to 30 per cent of the relevant age cohort.

That goal cannot be achieved without embracing online learning as a viable option for delivering education.

What is the scope for online learning in India? What is your success metric??

Our mission is to transform lives through access to education. And the only way to measure that is by looking at learner outcomes — a metric we actually track. Anyone who completes a course on Coursera receives a survey a few months later asking them to share how they’ve applied their new skills in their lives.

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