Do you want to do something in the education sector? Are you a teacher at heart? That’s awesome, but please don’t become a teacher in a school or college. If you are intelligent, driven, ambitious and really great at teaching, please consider becoming an education entrepreneur, join forces with others, and change the world.
I have nothing against teachers and professors, they are great and important people. They have generated a huge majority of human knowledge through research and invention for ages, and they have been so far primarily responsible for dissemination of the knowledge as well. However, after the technological advances of the last decade, internet and mobile revolution what the teachers and professors can do has completely changed in scope and scale. There are several reasons why e-learning can be better than classroom learning – and it has started to show. Maybe you should pay attention!
We are in the age of superstar teachers. The phenomenon has just about started to take shape. We are entering an age where teachers, like rock stars, will have thousands of fans. Teaching will truly become an art as technology makes it possible for one teacher to teach thousands of students at the same time.
We are entering a time when students can easily discover and choose the teachers they want. This completely changes the classroom scenario of your childhood, or even college days, when you were often stuck with your boring, sometimes incompetent teachers. Now the teachers must compete to survive in an online world.
I am not saying that local schools and colleges will die out, but the focus is about to shift on the global, online teachers who will earn fame and riches. That is the kind of teacher kids will dream of becoming when they grow up.
Now everyone will be attend the best courses of the best teachers of the world. An Indian law student might be able to attend international law classes online, taught by a Harvard law school professor.
This is not a mere dream any more, with companies like Coursera or 2U in the US tying up with the best universities there – such as Stanford and Harvard to offer Massive Online Open Courses.
In India, at iPleaders, in our own way, we are doing something very similar – we are tying up with the best law schools and leaders in the legal industry, to offer courses that teach advanced business law – which finds no place in college curriculums.
We are in another era of education altogether. There are some other fundamental changes in the way in which education has been changing too, and I would love to discuss them over here. Can you list out the 2 major changes you foresee in the education sector? Changes that will really impact the world?
If you like reading about education, e-learning or law – subscribe to my Facebook page and visit the Unlawyerd blog (where this was first published) where I write about education, law, business and the future.
And one more thing, if you want to become a teacher, consider e-learning, it is the future of education. Your contribution could be crucial to how it shapes up. If you are passionate about teaching and would like to help/partner with/ work with iPleaders – write to me at ramanuj@ipleaders.in
Looking forward to the discussion 🙂
Mandar Joshi
Excellent Post Ramanuj !!! Yes I totally agree with you that its a completely different age of learning and our teacher fraternity needs to adept to the new styles of learning/ training i.e. e Learning. Technology has become a leveller in many ways for us it stimulated major changes in Banking Industry ( Online Banking ) Travel Industry ( Online Bookings ) similarly Technology is about to make a change in Education Industry. e Learning is a very promising solution to the massive challenge we have to train billions of youths in our country. This is the only platform which is scalable and can deliver quality learning experience to the nooks and corners of the country. If as a country we wish to encash our ‘Demographic Dividend’, this is the only way forward for us. I can keep on writing for on and on as I am very passionate about e Learning and its huge capabilities. I have written in the past here about the changing paradigms in the JOB market, please check my post here
You have asked for two major changes that I foresee in the education sector. Please find my observations as follows;
Henceforth the importance of merit or marks will fade slowly and importance will get attached to the capabilities of students. I am not saying that the degrees wont be important but on the sidelines employers would start emphasising the importance of capability along with the paper certificates. This will give impetus to the companies dealing with skill based training programs and having an online training delivery model.
The second most important change I see is the creation of huge learning eco system of computers/ Laptops/ Tablets/ Fablets/ Smartphones/ 3G/ WiFi/ 4G and cheap broadband connections. This will give rise to the need of quality knowledge content focussed on various sectors or subjects catered by our education such as BFSI/ Retail/ ExIm Trade/ Manufacturing so that students armed with the hardware and connectivity will access this content.
As mentioned earlier I can keep on writing 🙂 I am following your Facebook page will surely read your blog and connect with you shortly to take this discussion forward.
Thanks for opening this topic for discussion once again.
Ramanuj Mukherjee
Thanks Mandar – excellent observations.
If the time is not now, then when? We have been hearing of e-learning boom from ages – but it looks more possible than ever before.
Everyday someone tells me that in India offline is better than online – but I have faith that online education spoace will beocme much bigger, and must faster than any of us can imagine 🙂
We are here to make it happen.
asha chaudhry
hey ramanuj,
been meaning to ask – how many teachers are a part of iPleaders?
Mandar Joshi
Yes it’s a relevant question When ?? and I have some observations in this regard.
Initially e Learning was stalled because of the unavailability of sufficient Internet bandwidth. No e learning course would be complete without video or graphical content rich with immense user experience. In absence of strong last mile connectivity such content could not be integrated before which severely affected learner engagement in the early years of industry formation.
I have strong faith on my belief 🙂 that various groups of learners need different treatment as far as e learning is concerned. Somehow the present e Learning companies seem to have undermined this fact. All the e Learning courses are and were built considering all learners are on the same plane and that’s affecting the learner engagement severely.
There can’t be any suitable age for spread of e learning than today as now we have excellent Internet backbone delivering amazing speed at the nook and corners of the country. The evolution of the smart gadgets like smart phones, tablets and net books are creating the knowledge seekers all around. What we need is right approach towards building content and lucrative business model.
Lets connect offline and take this discussion forward as it may sound a bit sluggish to other readers here 🙂
Ramanuj Mukherjee
Hi Asha,
Right now the team size is 3 – and all of us tech something. However, as this is e-learning, the teachers don’t have to be hired and retained necessarily! For instance, we are doing an webinar today, where a lawyer who has worked on the Tata-Jaguar deal will come and teach the laws related to inbound investment. He is an honorary faculty for our course.
If we are trying to teach import-export for instance, we catch hold of a customs officer, pick his brains on practical issues (say, how to get clearance after i have imported some goods and it is lying in a warehouse in a port), capture that knowledge and then present it through our e-learning modules (videos, text based study material, checklists, process documents etc.).