Distance Education: An Upward going swing
With a population of over 1.3 billion, India has come a long way from independence in the field of education. Starting from elementary education, India has seen a major shift in the online or Distance mode in this decade and it is expected to get massive as we go in the near future. According to the report by KPMG and Google published in 2017 ?The Online Education market in India currently stands at USD 247 million and is estimated to witness 8x growth over the next 5 years and reach USD 1.96 Billion in 2021?. By the reports, you must have realized that education hungry youth of India is how much ready to accept Distance Education. With over 35% of total youth in India, distance education is the infrastructure that can only cater to the education of them. The availability of cheaper IT resources has made distance education to reach in the remotest location of India.
Distance education is an open education in which is available to everyone still there it is governed by the top university governing counseling that is UGC so there is a proper standard of learning that will make graduates compatible in the job market. Distance Education Board or DEB decides whether a university is eligible to provide distance education. Whether the university has the proper infrastructure to deliver higher education at graduation and post-graduation level.
This was all about Distance Education and why there is a growth in distance education in the current scenario. But there is another and probably the most important factor that distance education is growing at an exponential rate. The main reason that Distance Education is getting such a growth in the students is that along with degree the students are getting the most important, job skills needed them to flourish in the market. This is the reason the distance education degree is getting recognition in the job markets. Let?s explore the factor why a Distance education degree is a complementary job skill development program too. Let?s go:
Why only a Degree is not enough
A degree of higher education is not enough. It must be a known fact to you. A survey of salary was conducted by an agency and found that ?Top 20% of ITI graduates get more salary than the bottom 20% of engineers?. This shows that the market is going with the students with the relevant skill than just a degree without any practical knowledge industry. In an interview CEO of IBM Ginni Rometty quoted ?Getting a job at today?s IBM does not require a college degree?. ?What matters most is the relevant skills?. Jeff Weiner, the CEO gave the statement focusing that degree is not the factor that will give you professional success but the industry skill will. Many giants such as Apple and Google test you on your skills but not on the degree. You must have got an idea in the nutshell that the skill is the deciding factor for the professional career that you aspire to be. A distance Degree is a degree that is providing you the relevant industry skills along with the degree tags.
Distance Degree with the relevant skills
UGC and DEB are the bodies that give approvals to the universities to allow distance education are some factors in which the most important factor they look at is in the curriculum. Does the curriculum have apt subjects, assignments, and learning material that induce skill development in the students or not? As the government of India is focusing on the skill development programs, the undergraduate and postgraduate program of Distance modes is getting the updated curriculum which is relevant to the industry and contributes to the industry skill development. Distance University have an increased focus on employment-oriented or job-ready skill development. Keeping inside the framework of the degree program there is the various way through which the distance university is promoting the skill development. Along the main degree in distance mode many vocational courses, certification courses are offered by the distance education university that is truly focused on the skills required in the jobs.
For example, if a student is pursuing a Distance MBA in Marketing Management the university offers a certification course in digital marketing, social media marketing as these are the most ongoing marketing skills.
Various guest lectures and webinars are provided by the universities to get deep insights about the industries so that you get to know how to apply the theoretical knowledge of degree programs to get the real worlds applications.
Also, distance or online education has no limitation of classroom learning you have proper time to manage your main course along with the industry-relevant apps.
Conclusion
In Online or Distance education, the faculty that are allotted to deliver the lectures are divided on a very practical basis. About 70% percent of faculty are the industry experts that the valuable experience in the same niche of industry and 30% of the professors. This must have given you the idea of the bigger picture that how much distance universities are focused on employment skills along with theoretical knowledge.
The online or distance education system of India is on the path of growing bigger every day and the modern updated curriculum with the latest skills and knowledge is the important factor in the popularity of it.
AUTHOR: Manish Pandey
Manish Pandey is an author at College Vidya. After pursuing BTech, Manish Pandey pursued his passion for writing and has been in Digital Marketing for Four years now. In the four years of work span, he has done copywriting for brands, content Creation, website writing, blog writing, and SEO.
