Domestic e-learning market in India remains untapped

According to the survey in Business Week 2008, the online education market in India generated about $200 million revenue in 2008, and the industry experts expect it to touch $1 billion by the end of the decade.

Online education is currently a hot market, which has attained a slow yet steady growth in India and e-learning service providers have invested in various domains right from K-12 education to virtual universities. Apart from the outsourcing market in which service providers develop courses for the developed countries, the domestic education market seems to have a good scope for e-learning players.

In India, with internet gaining popularity and mostly young people proficient in using it, e-learning seems to have good growth in higher education. Some of the popular online education institutes in India are Indian Institute of Management (IIM), Indian Institute of Technology (IIT), Indian Institute of Foreign Trade, and private schools like Symbiosis University and Sikkim Manipal University are offering online courses. The demand in India has sparked interests in some of the foreign universities and they have also established tie-ups with Indian universities to offer online courses. But India is yet to travel a long way to shift the mindset of people from distance education to online education.

Apart from the regular academic courses, online career-oriented programs and technology certification courses have gained popularity among Indian audience. Gurukul Online-learning Solutions is a major player in this arena and they have setup an online academy, GOLS which offers nearly 120+ career-oriented courses for 16 industry domains. NIIT is a leading provider of online education and they provide various career programs and technology courses. They also have widespread market in the Asia-Pacific, Japan, USA and Europe regions.

It might be a news to some of us to hear that industry experts state that the market size of competitive exams preparation (GRE, GMAT, CAT, IIT-JEE, AIEEE, SAT, TOEFL) in India is currently $1.6 billion and service providers find online competitive exam preparation courses as yet another profitable market. StudyPlaces.com is an online education portal in India that focuses in this arena.

With the CAT exams moving online, the experts feel that online-learning market will have a good growth. According to CLSA Asia Pacific market report, the computer-based learning market is expected to grow to $750 million by 2012.

While in the K-12 market, smaller Indian companies are involved in developing CDs for various topics- from rhymes, and story-based CDs to academic subjects for domestic market. Though this is not a huge market, there are several smaller companies in India with CBT development as their main business.

Apart from this, Tutorvista has partnered with Edurite to offer e-learning for school students in India and has set up various centers in cities and villages to offer technology-enabled training that includes e-learning content.
E-learning is a big hit in the education sector and has proved its presence in various levels. However, Indian schools are yet to adapt e-learning for academic education. What do you think are the reasons for it?