Coursera is a US-based education platform that has amassed almost 50 million users. 10% of these are Indians. After the US, India is the second-largest content consumer on Coursera.
At the moment, India is experiencing a digital boom, especially in the field of education. Ed-tech startups and companies across the world are planning to invest heavily.
A very evident proof for that would be the story of Coursera. This points to one direction that Indian students, especially the Millenials have decided to drop the conventional textbook methods and go for online courses.
Coursera to widen its user base in India
Capitalizing on the situation, Coursera has recently tied up with the Indian School of Business (ISB), Hyderabad the Indian Institute of Management (IIM), Calcutta, one of India’s finest management schools.
The aim to expand the user base across India. As per the CEO of Coursera, Jeff Maggioncalda, India’s user base is going to expand in the upcoming years. Within the next 10 years, India’s workforce will be increased by 100 million at least.
Today, more than 25% of students go to college for higher education after finishing high school. With India renewing its education policy and budget, it is expected that this number would rise dramatically. India has also legalized online education last year.
Also, to increase the number of students enrolling for higher education, it is expected that new institutes will open up in the near future.
Coursera was found to support business professionals with their needs in the technology era. Later, it realized the need and potential of the ‘quality’ higher education among the students. Today, there are more than 50 companies in India that have collaborated with Coursera to upskill their employees.
Machine Learning as the most popular course
Delving deep into the stats, the most popular course among the Indian students is ‘Machine Learning’ by Stanford University. The University of Michigan’s Programming for everyone’ comes second on the list.
The only constraint while working in India that students and professionals in India are less willing to pay money for courses as compared to other countries. Corporate and university tie-ups can help with that. Students can enjoy the courses which the university pays for and in this way both parties can be benefitted.
