e-Learning: Heralding a new era in India’s education sector

The Indian education sector has undergone a sea change in the past few decades. Once symbolized by the age-old ‘blackboard-chalk-and-talk’ model, classrooms in Indian schools have received a complete makeover following the advent of digital technologies. The journey of the Indian education has been marked with several milestones, with e-learning being a recent one.

The rising popularity of e-learning in India is largely due to various initiatives taken by the government. In addition, the Department of Electronics and Information Technology (DeitY) has been introducing new technologies to promote it further in the country. It needs to be mentioned here that DeitY has lent its support to many e-learning-based R&D projects at several academic institutions.

The growth of e-learning is also attributable to the sudden growth in internet connectivity in India. Since the number of internet users is expected to cross 250-million mark soon, India has the potential to emerge as a significant e-learning market. Further, it is now witnessing a steady surge in the number of smartphone users, which acts as another growth catalyst for e-learning in India.

Benefits associated with e-learning are immense, with foremost being the possibility of giving personalized attention to every student. Another significant advantage is that e-learning enables students to access the best possible learning resources. Indeed, it is a great boon for students in rural areas and small towns, where the availability of learning resources is very limited.

Online learning—or e-learning—is a great help for teachers as well. E-learning modules enable teacher to manage the learning pace as per their students’ needs. Likewise, these modules empower students also to set their learning pace as per their individual requirements. In other way, e-learning in India is rejuvenating the old concept of ‘self-learning is the best learning.’