October 10 was the second anniversary of Massive Open Online Courses (MOOCs) which are rapidly transforming the current education system. A few community members of Dhaka MOOC Exchange got together at Robindro Shorobor to talk about their educational experiences both in various institutions of Bangladesh as well as through online resources such as MOOCs. These online courses are being provided by some of the elite universities such as MIT, Harvard, Stanford, Columbia, to name a few, for free through platforms like Coursera, edX and Udacity.
Free online education is making headway in the US, reeling from financial crisis and with increasing cost of higher education and consequently, student debt. In developing countries like Bangladesh, MOOCs are creating quite a stir. A recent report by the HarvardX research team revealed the number of students from Bangladesh to be 3,106 as of August 18, or 0.6% of the worldwide enrollment for HarvardX courses offered via edX.
Despite such dramatic proof of local interest, there’s a lot of skepticism as to the efficacy and quality of these online courses. But listening to the Dhaka MOOC Exchange members, one soon loses those doubts.
Alin has a Bachelors degree in Finance from Dhaka University. He took an Introduction to Finance course from the University of Michigan at Coursera. He was amazed. The content of that one ten weeks course was equivalent to four finance courses at his university. Students can now compare their formal education with that of the best universities around the world. Local educational institutions can benefit as well from these resources by improving their own quality of education.
Raju, from Sherpur, noted the odd phenomenon of rising grades every year under the National Curriculum. He pointed out the politicisation behind this phenomenon, and how every political government in their bid to show that they have done a better job in education create pressure to artificially inflate the exam results. The question remains, what can we expect from these students when they take on serious, leadership roles?
Cost of education in Bangladesh is disproportionately higher than cost of living and employment compared to first world countries. K-12 education can run upwards of Tk20,000 per month per child. It’s equivalent to some of the best starting salaries in the banking and telecom sectors.
The development sector is full of talk of poverty reduction most of which is focused around income. What if we looked at the costs of education? And if we could make that single line item in every family’s monthly budget to zero through the adoption of MOOCs, we will certainly see a drastic improvement in the standard of living throughout the country.
Rashid shared his educational experience of constantly getting demotivated and disengaged. There were holes in the curriculum that he was expected to cover without being given any instructions. He is currently taking a few MOOCs through Coursera. He deeply believes there should be a step by step process for students so that they don’t get lost in the system.
Mony, an artist and an animator, has been working at a prominent animation studio in Dhaka. There are no animation schools in Dhaka. She got online and took many tutorials to learn her craft. Within a few years she had a portfolio of work that was so impressive she was hired on the spot. She is currently taking the Interactive 3D Graphics course at Udacity.
Zubuyer, Mony’s iconoclastic boss, didn’t bother getting his Higher Secondary Degree. He knew what he wanted to do, art and animation. Someone saw his portfolio and hired him right away, no certificates needed. That first year of his employment, his salary quadrupled. And the second year, that quadrupled salary doubled, meaning an eightfold increase of his initial salary. He ventured on his own to start Ogniroth Studios, one of the leading animation studios in Dhaka.
Alin used MOOCs to get a better job. He took Introduction to Computer Science at Udacity and at Codecademy, Introduction to R, a programming language used mainly for statistical analysis. Neither of these courses were part of his curriculum at Dhaka University. Noting it on his CV, he was not only hired by his employer but was made supervisor of a team of three holding similar finance degrees to himself. He admits not having noteworthy grades at DU, but given his MOOC knowledge, he was able to convince his employer he was qualified for the job.
Alin is not alone. More and more students outside of the Computer Science field are learning programming. Most are convinced that programming literacy not only enhances their marketable skills but also will be necessary in every field soon enough.
Yasser, having finished his A-levels recently and applying to universities, is using his down time to learn programming. He finished a couple of Computer Science courses at Udacity and is an ongoing student at Codecademy. He said Khan Academy changed his whole understanding of learning and education. It taught him to understand complex concepts more intuitively. His learning routine changed when he was studying for his A-levels. After he came home from class, he watched Khan Academy tutorials to gain solid comprehension of the concepts he was introduced to in class.
MOOCs seem to be a good way to not only explore topics one wouldn’t get within their academic discipline, but it’s also a great way to keep highly capable students engaged and interested in learning. MOOCs can play a vital role in supplementing if not supplanting formal education.
The free online education revolution is here. Whatever complaints we may have about the education system, we are not alone and it is not a Bangladeshi problem. What will become of the education system is anyone’s guess, but there’s no excuse to not take advantage of the resources that are out there for free right now.
Companies are looking more at portfolios of what a student has done rather than the fancy certificates they hold. To build those portfolios, you’ll need the best and the latest knowledge in the world. Visit KhanAcademy.org, Codecademy.com, Coursera.org, Udacity.com and edX.org to begin your exploration.
