The data echoes the demand for a massive market space for MOOCs for the Indian learners, which has become a great alternative for the learners to access quality higher ed[r]
(1)Working Paper
“Technology and Inequalities in Education – A case of Massive Open Online Courses (MOOCs) in Distance Education in India as a means of
Exclusion”
By: Arunima Naithani
Distance Education in India: Growth and Development
The Open and Distance Learning in India (or distance education) plays a significant role in democratising the higher education system of the country The growth and development of distance education, as a sub-system of higher education in India has experienced several stages Beginning from pure correspondence courses in early 1960s, the range of educational programmes, and institutional access has evolved and developed over time into technology-enabled education system Today, there are 14 State Open Universities, Indira Gandhi National Open University –IGNOU, in addition over 40 Universities (Private, central, state) which are dual mode institutions to provide distance education academic courses In terms of enrollment of students, distance education courses constituted 11.05 per cent of the total gross enrollment ratio (GER) of 26 per cent in higher education, especially at the UG, PG, and Certificate levels courses (AISHE Report, 2017-18) Impressively, the national open university of India – IGNOU offers 232 academic programs and is the world's largest university in terms of ever-growing enrolment (IGNOU Prospectus, 2017-18) This indicates a progressive trend in distance education system in India as more than million students are enrolled in various distance-learning programmes offered by such institutes (Gaba & Li, 2015)
(2)Although, higher education system in India is transforming rapidly to meet the global demands of the 'networked society', but its GER (calculated for 18-23 years old) is not very promising Compared with other developed nations where the GER in Higher Education are marked above 40 per cent, while in India it is still at 26 per cent This presents a huge challenge for the Government as the proposed target of 30% GER by 2020 is still unmet Since access to tertiary education, remains limited due to unavailability of „brick and mortar‟ institutions, educational resources and required faculty Distance education seems one such viable alternative through its flexible educational delivery and cost effectiveness in achieving the larger objective of access and equity in the higher education realm Particularly, in India where hierarchies of castes, socio-economic status, gender relations and cultural diversities deeply influence issues related to access and equity in affording quality education In relation to this, the Government strongly believes in the growth and development of distance education system in India for an improved and sustainable knowledge society
Education through Technology: Policy Initiatives
Technology is an indispensable part of everyday activities and it has its contribution on educational processes as well, particularly in distance education mode ICT enabled teaching, and learning is one of the promising feature Recent innovations have revolutionized the system of distance education, particularly in forms of e-learning, blended learning, OER (open educational resources) There is an emerging global educational community and India is making huge progress to bring all possible latest developments to provide learners with maximum learning opportunities Moreover, the emergence of the Internet and the World Wide Web has brought a radical shift in the transformation of education and training through web based online courses to offer life-long learning opportunities
(3)been successful under the programme - NPTEL (National Programme on Technology Enhanced Learning), a joint initiative of seven IITs and IISc institute funded by NMEICT scheme Launched in 2013, over time, it has developed around 933 courses in 23 disciplines as e-learning programme to be provided through online Web and Video based courses in engineering, science and humanities streams
Therefore, the need to reach out to a large number of students and learners who are majorly deprived of educational opportunities became a priority for the Government At the beginning of 2014, the MHRD, GoI undertook another initiative to develop a unified online learning platform A unified platform that would integrate several online Web and Video based educational courses, already developed by subject experts from various educational institutes under the NPTEL programme With this objective and resource available, it was decided to develop an indigenous platform for India‟s open online courses, thus a MOOC model was designed called – SWAYAM
SWAYAM –India’s MOOC
SWAYAM fully known as „Study Webs of Active Learning for Young Aspiring Minds‟ (SWAYAM) was launched as the beta version in 2017 A unique innovation featuring India‟s “Digital India” initiative, aims to bring learners closer to the digitalized revolution society, especially those who have remained untouched by the digital era Developed under NMEICT scheme, it supports the broader objective of providing access to quality education as well as increase the GER in higher education in India
(4)through SWAYAM‟ This regulation is applicable to all public universities (even affiliated institutes) as well as universities offering distance education courses These educational institutes shall allow their enrolled students to complete up to 20% of their degree online by taking online courses on SWAYAM These institutions would first have to earmark SWAYAM courses as credit-eligible courses required for the academic term, and which upon successful completion by the student will reflect in their degree
At present there are more than 500 free online courses categorized as Engineering (137 courses), Science (93 courses), Business (58 courses), Social Sciences (44 courses), Computer Science (36 courses), Humanities (31 courses), followed by Programming, Data Science, Education, Mathematics, Health and Medicine Moreover, Institutions such as the IITs and IIMs, among others, have collaborated with SWAYAM initiative to offer around 2,000 courses in science and management (Chauhan, 2017) In addition, it has been reported that around 2,300 courses on edX will soon be co-hosted on SWAYAM web portal for Indian students (Goyal, 2018)
Indian Learners in Global MOOCs Platform
These latest web-based courses, particularly, MOOCs - open online courses that allow for unlimited participation, as well as SPOCs (Small Private Online Courses), is said to have revolutionized universities and the higher education landscape (Kaplan & Haenlein, 2016) Availability of MOOCs has recently attracted a very large number of students Since their emergence in 2012, the number of registered MOOC users has significantly increased Currently, at the global level, about 800 universities offer 9,400 courses on MOOC platforms In addition to 81 million MOOC users globally in 2017, new 23 million learners are expected to join in the following year (Class Central, 2018) This signifies the massiveness and open aspects of MOOCs, that is, an online distance course accessible without entry requirements by anyone at no cost, thus making it unique
(5)MOOC learners from India are one of the largest groups enrolling (after participants from the United States and China)
All around the world leading universities have collaborated with MOOC providers such as Coursera and EdX to deliver high-quality online courses free to millions of learners These two are currently the largest higher education provider in the world in terms of registered learners in the virtual learning platform With Indian students signing up for MOOCs, globally in large numbers and embracing the online education learning models is an interesting research inquiry It is even predicted that in coming years the market for MOOCs in India will be much bigger than the U.S (Anant Agarwal, CEO, edX, as cited in Damodharan, 2016) The data echoes the demand for a massive market space for MOOCs for the Indian learners, which has become a great alternative for the learners to access quality higher education course content through online learning
The Digital Divide and Criticism on MOOCs
This massification of MOOCs are under a lot of criticism and scrutiny The large-scale implementation of MOOCs in the international education market has not paid much attention to the process of completion and engagement with the courses, as well as, the increasing dropout rates (Liyanagunawardena et al., 2013; Jordan, 2015) Moreover, million learners in the world today are still untouched by the empowering features of online learning and MOOCs This has provoked a lot of criticism towards the exclusivity factor of MOOCs and the homogenous profile of learners Since access to technology in any society is not uniform, this further reinforces the existing educational divide in the digital world
Globally, there is a wide disparity within people to make effective use of Information, Communication and Technology (ICT) in their everyday lives Mainly caused by the digital divide, that is the gap between learners who have effective access to information technology, and those who are left out without access and usage As quoted by Paul (2002) - the phrase “digital divide” refers to the unequal and disproportionate pace of development in societies in having access to digital infrastructure and services (p 13) The research in digital divide broadly conceptualizes it in terms of the differences of accessibility to technology and user‟s digital skills for usage For the accessibility of high-quality content of MOOC courses, a learner requires high-speed internet or wi-fi connectivity (for downloading material and viewing videos), either on the desktop or mobile devices This raises the issue of technological cost for many in developing countries, especially relevant for rural and remote township communities, thus leaving behind learners who are digitally disadvantaged
(6)subjective, economic, imaginary structurations of lived experience and the systems within which we exist and operate” (pp 368–369) Such robust understanding of digital divide has to be acknowledged, to shift away from the technological determinist perspective and move towards a framework that examines how the digital divide reflects and reinforces society‟s social and economic inequities (Light, 2001; Mossberger et al., 2003) This digital divide, which is a reproducer of larger social problem, is misunderstood even at the policy and institutional level Light (2001) critiques policies that concentrate on technical fixes for these social problems, stating, „the digital divide debate is based on a technologically determinist assumption that closing gaps in access to computers will mitigate broader inequalities – an assumption requiring enormous faith in the capacity of a technology to bring about major social change‟ (Ibid.)
Proponents of MOOCs, emphasize that MOOCs are recent innovations in the educational domain, which makes education “class blind” (Agarwal, 2013), and “allow people who lack access to world-class learning, an opportunity to make a better life for themselves and their families” (Friedman, 2012) Therefore in a just and equitable society, the notion of “class-blind” would refer to witnessing least affluent students equally or overrepresented in the distribution of MOOC enrolled students, as well as, completing courses successfully Instead, earliest evidence of MOOC enrollment saw that most registered students/learners are from privileged background (Ho et al., 2013; Perna et al., 2014) MOOC users are well, educated young male learners aged under 30 (mostly post-secondary degrees and graduate degree) Most of them are predominantly from developed and emerging countries (US, Europe, India, China, UK) generally in job market belonging to a privileged and advantaged background in terms of socio-economic status and technologically advancement (Glass et al., 2015) Similar findings are reflected in the context of India, it was found that majority of Indian MOOC students are employed full-time and using the courses to develop skills that help them at their current job or will help them find a new one (Christensen et al., 2013) This highlights that MOOCs are at a greater extent augmenting educational advantages to „educated‟ student community than educating the „have-nots‟ or digitally disadvantaged students (Emanueal, 2013)
Digital inequality is one of the newer forms of inequalities, which is prominent in the society along with the long-standing traditional forms of inequalities It is mainly understood in the broader context of social inequality and social stratification, seen as the different skills required for using information sources and opportunities that are the major cause of digital divides (Hargittai & Hinnant, 2008; Selwyn, 2004) Moreover, the existing patterns that characterize and shape social structures, such as education, skills, income, occupation, and gender strongly influences access to and use of the Internet (Rice & Katz, 2003; van Deursen & van Dijk, 2013) Therefore, there exist a complex interplay between MOOC learner educational status and existing educational inequality
(7)language that further perpetuate educational divides resulting in massive dropouts DiMaggio and Hargittai (2001) point out that there are at least five dimensions of digital inequality: equipment, autonomy of use, skill, social support, and the purpose of using the Internet Thus understanding such patterns of MOOC enrolled students and those left behind is critical to determining whether MOOCs are ameliorating or exacerbating educational inequalities (Hansen & Reich, 2015)
In order to understand and address digital divides and educational inequalities, research in MOOCs need exhaustive demographic information on student profile The future research in studying the digital divide thus should include „robust survey-based and in-depth qualitative work which begins to unpack the complexities of the digital divide‟ (Selwyn, 2004) Particularly, assessing registrants‟ socioeconomic status (SES), to understand “one‟s access to financial, social, cultural, and human capital resources” (Hansen & Reich, 2015) Research even suggests that MOOCs not yet appear to be reaching the developing world and critical target groups such as women, unemployed youth and digitally disadvantage learners The lack of utilization of MOOCs in developing and lower-income countries may be because young learners are unaware of the benefits of MOOCs (Ibid.) Moreover, the mere access to high-level MOOCs content does not manifest in effective learning or knowledge generation in a specific course or topic For MOOCs to be meaningful, they need to be supported with continuous academic support, diagnostic assessment, feedback and peer engagement This is particularly necessary for students from academically disadvantaged contexts, and in developing countries such as India, which have a glaring digital divide
United Nations embraced the IT developments and technological changes in the early 21st century as major markers for growth and development and acknowledged the usage of Internet as a basic human right However, various studies (Singh, 2010; Guillen, 2006; DiMaggio et al., 2001) highlights that the problem of the digital divide is starker in the developing countries such as in India Research suggests there are several factors like physical access, lack of ICT skills and support, attitudinal factors, age, gender, low literacy rate, language barriers, geographical (rural-urban) which reinforce this digital divide especially in India
(8)using mobile phones, which is far more extreme than the global divide as highlighted by UNICEF report (2017)
Over the years, wireless connectivity has grown exponentially with over billion active connections Increased accessibility, availability of bandwidth, and affordable data costs have brought some radical changes towards massive internet users from rural India Recent studies indicate (ICUBE 2018) that there are active internet users from rural India who are accessing the internet to meet their entertainment and communication needs However, the high-value functions of mobile Internet penetration and 4G/3G services are still in nascent stages Thus, given the low penetration of the Internet, there is a possibility that access to the Internet is present only among the privileged, digitally advantaged section of society from urban pockets Moreover, the current data on Internet usage from private agencies offer very little insights on how various social groups are excluded from the digital space (Ilavarasan, 2013) It is definite that India is facing similar challenges in offering MOOCs, especially with the SWAYAM model As highlighted by MOOCs critique in India, the development of MOOCs might undervalue the public educational institutes, further reinforcing educational inequality, especially for the specific segments of students/learners What remains unnoticed is the existing challenges, which persist in the present system of distance education, particularly, for students who are enrolled in the conventional correspondence mode of learning Teaching practice in India and course curriculum particularly at distance mode is extremely conservative While, the syllabi of online courses differ from university courses, and the level/speed of teaching is often too fast for students at regional colleges Even if there are plans and attempts to mix MOOCs with courses in other institutes, it may have limited success Understanding language and the accent is another serious concern since in India MOOCs courses are being offered only in two languages – English and Hindi As mentioned earlier, the technical constraints in online learning such as network bandwidth that is, limited video streaming and access other interactive content will dilute the chances for most of the digitally disadvantaged students in India