Jeff Maggioncalda, CEO of the online learning platform Coursera, and I were debating the title question of this column at an educational technology, or edtech, conference in London last week as I explained to him Bangladesh’s plan for education going forward.
What Coursera has achieved for its millions of students around the world has been amazing, especially during the pandemic, by offering high quality educational content from top universities around the world.
Coursera has been arguably the most well-known success story of online education at the tertiary level, a start-up that was founded less than about a decade ago that has now gone public, has a yearly revenue close to $500 million, a user base of close to 100 million, and offering about 4,000 courses across about 250 top universities and institutions of higher education that it partners with.
Jeff has been on the record saying, just as the pandemic broke out about two years ago, that the education system will change dramatically, and for good.
“When things get to a new normal, certainly people will go back to school, but it will never be the same,” said Jeff in 2020.
Two years on, now with the pandemic perhaps finally tapering off, and schools and universities now open even in Bangladesh which had seen the longest closures, the question remains as legitimate as ever.
For there is little doubt that while the move to online had already begun, the pandemic accelerated it beyond anyone’s imagination. Coursera has been on the forefront of this change, and within one month of the pandemic breaking out in March 2020, received about 17,000 inquiries from colleges around the world, and helped more than 2,000 universities with their online curriculum.
As more and more students gravitate towards platforms like Coursera, or even platforms such as 10 Minute School or Muktopaath in Bangladesh, where do universities fall in all of this change?
I wanted to find out from Jeff how Bangladesh can benefit from the Coursera experience and utilize this experience as we design our education suited to the learners of Bangladesh.
There are a few considerations.
First, a large number of universities in Bangladesh -- both public and private -- started online classes during the pandemic for obvious reasons. However, that mostly meant taking classes synchronously over video conferencing and Facebook Live without leveraging the power of internet-based learning management platforms for a new type of pedagogy that includes recorded materials, interactive materials, assessments, teacher professional development, and many other modalities.
A platform like Coursera offers advanced tools and technologies that allow educators and educational institutions to make online education experience enriching and effective.
Second, a platform like Coursera has opened up high quality courses to students who would not be able to access them otherwise because of the high cost of on-campus education and the length of time a student has to be on campus for years on end. Many students cannot afford the cost, time, and distance from their homes. So, Coursera has massively lowered the time, cost and visit (TCV) to access high quality tertiary education.
Their strategy is to partner with very reputed institutions and transform their on-campus courses to online courses rather than creating online course content from scratch.
Why can’t we do this in Bangladesh if our own reputed institutions of higher learning believe in democratization of education, especially if it comes at no loss to their own on-campus students and, in the case of private universities, to their revenues?
In fact, by doing this, good public universities will benefit a lot more students and good private universities will increase their revenue.
I am reminded of an experience of the current director general of the Directorate of Secondary and Higher Education. When he was the principal of Dhaka College at the outbreak of the pandemic in early 2020, he took his courses online with the help of junior, tech-savvy faculty and the endorsement of the education minister.
He not only made his hitherto on-campus-only courses accessible online to his students who were confined to their homes, but also saw hundreds of thousands of students of other colleges attend these high quality courses offered online by his reputable institution.
This phenomenon increased the impact of Dhaka College to students of many other institutions without hampering its own students or the reputation of other colleges. In the 180-year history of Dhaka College, the oldest higher education institution in the country, students of other colleges got a taste of its fantastic courses taught by its excellent faculty for the first time (ignoring the private tutoring of the faculty of the college).
This is the opportunity afforded by technology. Not using it is simply a lost opportunity for our nation.
Third, as Jeff rightfully said, in the 21st century world of today that is experiencing both the positive and negative impacts of the fourth industrial revolution, the multi-year university model in one institution requires serious consideration.
For it is the time for micro-credentials. It is the time for acquiring marketable skills.
The employees of tomorrow are better off being knowledgeable about a host of different subject matters that are relevant to their employment, and being agile enough to absorb the relevant micro-credentials and skills required for their tasks. Already, employers complain aplenty about how institutions of higher learning in Bangladesh do not produce the skills required by the market.
Once again, we must ask: What does all of this mean for universities moving forward?
This is what we shall explore in next week’s conclusion.
Anir Chowdhury is a US tech entrepreneur turned Bangladeshi government entrepreneur serving as the Policy Advisor of a2i in ICT Division and Cabinet Division supported by UNDP.
