The Indian government is opening up the market for fully online degrees, and U.S. companies are poised to be players.
The government of India is for the first time allowing universities to offer fully online degrees — a change that could reshape education delivery in the country while blowing open the door to a previously limited market for U.S.-based online education services companies.
For many years, Indian universities and colleges were not permitted to offer more than 20 percent of a degree online, in part because of concerns about quality and limited mechanisms for oversight and regulation. Now, as part of a push to widen access to higher education and raise the profile of Indian institutions globally, restrictions on online learning are starting to lift.
For U.S.-based online education platforms, the news is a welcome shift. Massive open online education providers Coursera and edX both say they hope to increase their existing presence in India and partner more deeply with institutions there.
The government’s approach to online learning is, however, still cautious. Only the top 100 institutions in India’s National Institutional Ranking Framework can apply to offer fully online degrees, and the subject areas are restricted. There will be no online medical or law degrees from the country’s universities in the foreseeable future.