Historically, the evolution of the Indian higher education system in modern times since the British era through 1950s, 60s, 70s and 80s succeeded in producing quality output in terms of trained personnel/ persons with higher education degrees from a few select institutions. However, a huge vacuum had been developing in the system over the years with respect to scalability – the elitist system had not kept pace with the demographic reality of burgeoning upper and lower middle classes of India in the 1980s and 90s and led to a yawning gap between the aspirations and the few higher educational opportunities in the country. Evidently incumbent universities and Institutes of ‘historical repute’ known for providing ‘quality’ education in the country could only serve a small segment of the population primarily due to their limited intake. A large number of incumbent universities in the remote areas were ‘lack-lustre’, in a dilapidated state and needed up gradation and rejuvenation at various levels. This fact had been at the heart of the exodus of students from semi-urban, tier 2 and 3 cities to ‘urban centres’ for college/university education every year through 1980s and 90s.
The challenge of information and knowledge delivery in developing countries and the potential of eLearning as a viable approach have been acknowledged since long (Abdon, Raab, &Ninomiya, 2008). The Massive Open Online Course (MOOC), in particular, is a specific eLearning artefact that was (at least initially) promoted by the providers as a significant development for extending education in developing countries (Koller, 2012). The utility and promise of the MOOC was recognised in the Indian context too (Jain et al., 2014). In an interview with the researcher an online HE expert Pradeep Varma noted, ‘The whole concept of MOOCs is predicated on two major factors, especially true in the Indian context. These are a lack of brick-and-mortar colleges/class rooms (and a lack of resources to create these to meet the vast need in India), and secondly, a dire lack of good faculty. The faculty shortage in India is so bad that in many cases, persons just out of college are being utilised to teach college classes. For example, AICTE has mandated that an engineering institution may hire a person who is at least an M. Tech as a faculty member. However, we find that many private institutions are making do with B. Tech graduates. One reason for this situation is that Indian students prefer to take up a job right after graduation rather than go in for a PG or a Doctorate… MOOCs, by definition, are in the online space and hence can cater to learners all over the country as well as anywhere in the world.
Key words: Impact , Academic , Moderating , Role , Academic , Streams
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