Why It’s Time To Go The Whole Hog On Online Degrees

Two things have grown by leaps and bounds in the last one year: coronavirus and online education.

EduTech has not just got well entrenched but has also sneaked into the nooks and corners of the world.

India too has seen the silent and unplanned transformation in the way virtual classrooms and examinations have been held successfully, given the enormity of the pandemic and the consequent tribulations.

In all these, one event deserves the attention of policymakers: Amazon’s recent foray into the Indian school education sector that already has many players.

The entry of the e-commerce giant into Indian academia provides a few policy takeaways that go beyond the school education sector and well into the higher education space.

One, technology would increasingly run the show henceforth, relegating the traditional brick-and-mortar model to a lower rung.

Two, investment into the sector should also be on elevating the digital infrastructure of institutions.

Three, customised teaching-learning will be the new norm vis-à-vis the prevalent inflexible and dated one-size-fits-all system.

Four, if the employment market recognises the online-offerings of the new-age players, then the relevance and strength of the degree and diplomas offered by hitherto regulated traditional players would dissipate.

Five, the challenge of low teaching-learning outcomes of online education, in relation to the traditional offline or in-person method, is not insurmountable and with experience, the quality of online education, except the laboratory based programmes, would significantly improve over time.

Six, foreign players, including universities and corporates, would not only have a backdoor entry but by significantly setting academic standards, would partially assume the role of a de-facto regulator.

To the credit of the policymakers, the sector already allowed online education in 2017 itself by allowing up to 20 per cent of the total courses through online mode.

Within a year, the 2018 Regulation of the UGC allowed online degrees to be granted. With the focus fixed on ensuring the quality of the online programmes, care was taken to let only the top players to participate.

It permitted only those institutions that were at least five years in existence, have an institutional accreditation score of at least 3.26 on a scale of 4 and find a place in the Top-100 in overall category in the National Institutional Ranking Framework (NIRF) at least twice in the three previous years.

Further, even the eligible institution can only offer a programme from among the bouquet of programmes it is already offering offline.

Appreciably, the regulator came up with slightly relaxed norms in September 2020, when the nation was still under the grip of the pandemic. The easing of conditions was marginal: the age of eligible universities was brought down to 3 from 5 years and any university with a NAAC score of at least 3.26 “or” ranking within the top 100 in the preceding 2 out of 3 years was also given the nod to start online programmes.

While the regulator deserves commendation for continuously aligning the norms in consonance with the general emerging trend and also for being consistent with its insistence of allowing only the top universities, the ground realities have changed considerably and swiftly.

The entry barriers are not just high, but also restrictive. Out of 967 universities, only 100 are eligible, assuming that the 73 universities that have valid NAAC score of 3.26 or above, as of December 2020, find a place in the NIRF top 100 positions.

This leaves out almost 90 per cent of the existing universities. Interestingly, 109 universities that do not make the cut have scores between 3 and 3.25. If a university outside the stipulated NAAC or NIRF benchmarks is good enough to teach and award degrees offline, it is equally good enough to do the same online too.

Similarly, if a newly established university is capable of delivering conventionally from day one, it can also hit the ground running on online mode.

Further, a performing department in an underperforming institution gets rejected, while an underperforming department in a performing institution gets rewarded.

When it comes to tech-related reforms, most policy-makers are inevitably and predictably behind the curve.

It is so because technology is always in a state of flux, with what is in vogue today becoming obsolete tomorrow. Though constant free-wheeling of policy regulations into effect with every new happening on the ground is neither necessary nor advisable, it is essential to take note of transformative happenings and bring in regulatory facilitation.

The prevalent situation is one such case where a decisive policy turn has to be made — which is to unshackle all the existing universities.

It is better to fix quality standards of the education provided online than to be fixated on the number of institutional providers to be given the green signal.

If quality is the concern, it is better to allow all the existing players that are bound by the rules of the regulator to play the game, than to restrict them and thereby create a void to be only filled up by entities that are beyond the realm of control of the regulator

The 2020 Regulation indicates a review after the 2020-21 session. Going full-throttle on online degree programmes will immunise the existing and prospective universities against any foreign bodies.