Digital products for higher education in India: McGraw Hill Education (I) Pvt. Ltd.

Abstract

The summer internship project at McGraw Hill Education (MHE) comprised of two components – the first component involved working with the project team on a new digital product developed by MHE for business schools (called manaEGDE) and the second component involved doing a general research on digital products in management and engineering institutions in India. The Indian higher education segment has shown impressive growth over the last decade. The number of higher education institutions (HEIs) has grown at a CAGR of 9% while student enrollment has grown at a CAGR of 10.8%. The Gross Enrollment Ratio (GER) has grown at a CAGR of 7.8 % in the last 5 years. While these trends present a positive picture of the industry, there are some serious issues concerning the quality of education of the HEIs in the country. According to the 12th Five Year Plan (2012-2017) prepared by the Planning Commission of India, higher education in India faces challenges on three fronts – expansion, equity and excellence. Talking about the lack of “excellence” in HEIs in the country, significant problems exist in the quality of education provided in the HEIs. There is a shortage of well-trained faculty, the infrastructure is poor and the curriculum is outdated and irrelevant. The standards of research and teaching at Indian universities are far below international standards. Therefore, there is a need to shift from an input-centric and credential-based pedagogical approach to a learner-centric and learning-outcome based approach to improve the quality of education in HEIs. With this need for improvement in the overall quality of education required in the country, this report discusses manaEDGE. It is an online digital product aimed at improvement of overall quality of management education in the country. The report also discusses the current scenario and scope of digital products in HEIs in general. The report is broadly divided into two parts. The first part is about manEDGE, its working, and its features and benefits. I have noted down in detail my role in the manaEDGE project of MHE and have come up with some recommendations and a suggested go-to market strategy for the product. The second part of the report is about the general research carried out to understand the current scenario of digital products and their scope in management and engineering education. The key findings of primary research conducted through interviews and discussions with internal and external stakeholders have been discussed in detail. A supplementary research was also carried on a recent initiative of the Ministry of Human Resource Development (MHRD) on setting up an “incubation fund” for top 100 institutions of the country. The major points from the research have been mentioned in the Annexure to this report.