Online Education: What is the most useful format for Asian Countries

Prof. T. V. Rao

Many organizations are these days talking about Online Education. MOOCs seem to be quite popular. I like to share some of my thoughts on this for Asian minds.

I have been personally associated with developing programmed instruction material much before the IT and other technological developments of recent times. I was trained and certified in  Self- Instructional material in 1968-69 by NCERT at the beginning of my carrier. We have trained number of trainers in organizations like State Bank of India in late sixties. I also developed programmed Instructional materials for topics research methods. A large part of the self-instructional material being developed today is based on B F Skinner's work on learning theories (The art of teaching and science of Learning) and “Teaching Machines”.

However we did not pursue this method much in those days, as after some time it was felt that self-instructional material are for subjects like Science and Mathematics-as a lot of complex information has to be broken down and presented in a simple way for people to understand. It was felt humanities and social sciences don't need such self instructional material as they are not concepts and equations to follow. At times it was also felt that programmed instruction is meant for less intelligent people with comprehension challenges.

However, late eighties and nineties have popularized the auto-instructional or self-learning material thanks to the need for multiplying IT professionals of different kinds. So, online education with self-instructional material has become popular with IT professionals in the last decade and a half. Many IT companies started buying packages of on line materials to teach soft skills like negotiation communication, leadership, sales etc. Other organizations followed due its low cost and conveniences for the learner both in terms of the pace and venue.

In the early 80s, Professor Udai Pareek and I wrote a book on Education Methods including distance education and reviewed experiences of various countries and suggested some methodologies. It was published as a ‘Handbook of training for education managers” in 1982 by UNESCO, Bangkok and later republished by Macmillan in India (http://jainbookagency.com/booksearch.aspx?aname=Prof.%20Udai%20Pareek%20&%20Prof.%20T.V.Rao).

With the many advantages found in auto instructional materials it has become popular atleast in many of the developed countries. Now it is also spreading to other countries like India, China, Malaysia, Thailand etc. However they are yet to become popular like other skills based classroom exercises. 

When I was associated with the IGNOU Board, we made efforts to start diploma programs. At the Academy of HRD in Ahmadabad we started a diploma in HRD through distance learning. It was a grand success. It had the following components:

• ·         Each course was divided into small units of 15 to 20 modules.
• ·         Each candidate had to learn one module per week at his workplace.
• ·         Each module had a question based exercise and an application based activity which the candidate had to complete and mail to AHRD. For example for a module on performance planning the candidate should answer a few questions and also take an exercise giving a performance plan of his own work or the work of one of his juniors.
• ·         We conducted contact sessions at the end of the modules at the convenient place of learners.

So content, test and application were components of this distance education. Since last 15 years, we have been following the same principle at TVRLS for our Certification Programs on Competency Mapping, PMS, HRD Audit, ADCs etc.

After I started TVRLS in 1996, we used a similar technology in offering a three to four month based distance learning cum contact sessions. For example our certificates in Competency Mapping, Assessment and development centers, 360 Degree feedback, HRD Audit

Performance management etc. all had the following components:

• 1.      Distance education by mailed material
• 2.      Exercises to be done while reading the material and mailing to instructors
• 3.      Contact sessions, and
• 4.      Project work.

We found that knowledge can be passed on online or by other distance education mode but skills can be better developed only during contact programs. Learning from each other in a dynamic way and from the Instructor are critical. Instructors or facilitators carry a lot of experience with them which they can’t always put in a print or ppt form. Some experiences get shared with emotions better in contact. Hence we decided to offer online programs with a difference- incorporating emotions and experience sharing which we think is more suitable for Asian learners.

Thus, with the popularity of on line learning materials and with a view to reach a larger number of people we decided to try OLEPs with a difference at TVRLS. (see: http://www.tvrls.com/online_education.php)

Experience our OLEPs with a difference:

1.     1.  A facilitator to present content and handle participant queries on the web.

2.    2.   Use of multiple delivery methods: We will be conducting webinar presentations using Ppt and will also be mailing the participants supplementary reading material.

3.      3. Only 25 participants in each batch to ensure individual attention and better quality learning.

4.      4. Our instructors are highly experienced with more than two decades of corporate and academic experience and have authored several books, papers and are board members on various organization councils. Dr. Rao and many of his esteemed colleagues from reputed B-schools like IIM-A, XLRI, ISB will be a part of the team.

5.     5. The programs will be offered at 3 levels: Knowledge, Skill (through contact workshop) and Application (through project work)