Bridging gaps

Abstract

IT-enablement can help good colleges build bridges to distance education and fill the gaps to learning. Over the past decade, the World Wide Web has spread its tentacles to the farthest reaches of our country. Whereas internet users across the world have grown six-fold over this period, emerging nations like India and China have witnessed a twenty-fold increase. These numbers mask the reality that only one in every 12 Indians can currently access the web, whereas four times as many Chinese can (See a tabulation by Internet World Stats at http://www.internetworldstats.com/top20.html ).

After Independence, the Indian Government and some private trusts concertedly built up capacity for higher learning. Today, 15 million Indians are enrolled in brick-and-mortar as well as distance learning universities. To quench an ever-increasing demand for trained manpower, our gross enrolment rate (GER) in higher learning has to double by 2020. Our country is blessed with talented teachers at all levels, and quality academic institutions that have been around for decades. If these institutions were technology-enabled, they could help raise the GER by expanding their enrolments manifold. Read more at: https://www.edu-leaders.com/articles/12924/bridging-gaps