Great Learning to launch online undergraduate programmes in finance, technology

Ed-tech firm Great Learning that focussed primarily on professional education is now venturing into core education. The seven-year-old, Gurugram-based company will launch three-year online undergraduate programmes in the next two-three months.

Mohan Lakhamraju, CEO and Co-founder, Great Learning said they will first focus on 'hard' disciplines such as business, finance, commerce, mathematics, economics and technology-related undergraduate degree programmes. After that, they will launch programmes in allied health science, law and humanities. "This prioritisation is based on the course content that we already have and building on to that specialisation first," he says.

He adds that the programmes will be in partnership with higher education universities. "The partnership will be with progressive and like-minded universities that are ready to take the leap, as not every university has organisational capability or leadership inclination to offer higher education online," he says.

These will be three-year programmes and will be offered through online only or through the blended model, which will be a combination of online lectures and classroom teaching. The percentage of online and offline will depend on the nature of the programme, he says.

Lakhamraju adds, "The focus will be more on blended learning because at undergraduate level social interaction is an important part of the learning process and students at this age learn how to deal with peers. We will be looking at different innovative models on building this in the curriculum."

Earlier Indian universities and colleges, due to government regulations, couldn't offer more than 20 per cent of their curriculum online. It was only recently that the government removed this threshold and allowed India's top 100 universities (as per the National Institutional Ranking Framework) to offer undergrad programmes online.

During COVID-19, as universities were struggling to offer online learning to their students, Great Learning opened up its own digital platform 'Olympus Digital Campus' to them on a subscription basis. The platform is not just about delivering live lectures but also about bringing the entire institution online. It supports live learning, proctored exams, smart time tables, assessments, grading, peer collaborations, content development, student progress tracking / engagement, and faculty feedback. It also offers complete administration management from course and batch planning to preparing marks sheets and certificates, tracking attendance and recording student feedback. Through Olympus, Great Learning has already delivered 25 million hours of learning for 100,000-plus learners from 80 countries.