India fastest growing mkt for Coursera, will soon be no.1: CEO Maggioncalda

Jeff Maggioncalda, CEO of Coursera, the world’s largest online course provider, has been on a whirlwind tour of India meeting almost every top university and colleges over the last seven days. While he is busy tying up with elite institutes in India, he is also seeing the corporates joining the Coursera platform as they focus on skilling talent. In an interview with Shivani Shinde & Vinay Umarji he talks about how India will soon become its largest market and how after exporting talent, the country is now exporting knowledge. Edited excerpts…

Where does India stand in Coursera’s online education and upskilling market?

We had about 47 million learners globally on the platform at the beginning of 2020. And during the pandemic, rather just in 2020, another 30 million people joined and many of those were in India. Today we have about 110 million learners on the platform, of which 17 million are from India. India's growing faster than Europe and North America. If you look at the top five countries of learners on Coursera, the US has 20 million, India has 17 million. And then the third biggest is Mexico, with 5.4 million. India is three times larger than the next largest country and second only to the US in terms of size. India is also growing very rapidly at 34% per year. I think it will soon become the largest country in the world using Coursera.

On the institutions side, in the last 12 months or maybe 18 months, we've signed on 15 of the largest and most prominent Indian universities, and they include names like IIT Bombay, IIIT Bangalore. IISC, IIM-Ahmedabad, IIT-Roorkee, BITS Pilani and many more.  What's interesting to note is that over half of people using that content are from outside of India. India is exporting not only its talent, but also its knowledge to the rest of the world.

Could you elaborate more on the uptake of Indian institute generated content on Coursera?

Indian partners are reaching a wider (global) audience. Indian partner generated content has reached 850,000 learners and seen 1.1 million enrollments. Degrees from Indian UPs have reached learners in over 45 countries including India, US, Japan, Canada, Germany, Italy.

University certificates from Indian university partners (UPs) have reached learners in over 55 countries including US, UAE, Canada, UK and Japan. For example, more than half (55%) of the students in IIT Roorkee’s Post Graduate Certificate in Data Science and Machine Learning are from outside India. Students span 14 countries, including US, Canada, UK, Indonesia and Saudi Arabia.

Courses and Specializations from Indian UPs have reached learners in over 190 countries including India, US, UK, Mexico. At ISB, which is one of our oldest UPs in India. Today, two-thirds (67%) of the total learners for its courses on our platform come from outside India.

With the offline world opening, what shift have you seen since the world opening up?

Year 2020 was just an incredible, unexpected, unprecedented demand across the business. We had 30 institutions using Coursera for campus in 2020 in February, after the pandemic that jumped to 4000 in seven months. When we look at the usage patterns of Coursera for campus, almost 1,100 of the 4,000 institutions are Indian universities. With campuses opening up, yes many students prefer it too, but online is not going away. Students want access to top courses, they would like some flexibility.

What are Indian companies and students seeking when they look at online players like Coursera?

We just did this big survey of students and employers in eight different countries, including India. The survey basically looked at this new phenomenon of higher education integrating industry micro credentials into the university curriculum.

We asked students what they think about professional courses. And asked companies to what degree would their decision to hire someone be influenced if the candidate has a professional certificate?

The survey was conducted with participation of 2,400 students and 1,400 companies of these 150 companies were from India. Almost 85 per cent companies in India (global average 76 per cent) are more likely to hire a candidate who has a micro credential.

Among the student base, 82 per cent in India (globally 75 per cent) said an entry-level certificate in an academic programme would make them more likely to enrol in that programme.

Our tie-ups with Google, Meta, IBM, Intuit and now Tally are building on these multicourse certificates.

With National Education Policy (NEP) 2020 enabling Indian institutions in digital & hybrid education, what threats and opportunities does Coursera see for itself?

The draft of the NDP is visionary. Number one is setting the gross enrolment ratio (GER) target to 50% by 2035. That is 27% today, which means we are talking about adding another 35 million students. This would require about 3.8 million new teachers, higher education teachers. The NEP lays out a number of things. First of all, they say, online learning is going to be the only way to provide education to that many people. Two, NEP talks about multidisciplinary learning. So India so far was known as a hub for IT services and people are focused on one aspect of learning, going forward that will change. We see the shift in the labour market in India is really broadening to many disciplines. For instance, IIT Bombay is focusing big on semiconductors. What this means for Coursera is that we will be able to train people across all these different disciplines.

India has seen quite a few home grown edtech firms who do compete with you as well. How is the competition now?

When we look at the real opportunities and imperatives in India, a lot of it has to do with education. There is a huge need in the K-12 segment and we frankly do not play in that segment. The big differences with respect to what we want to carve out versus others is that being a global company we don't think that we're going to be able to out compete companies in India who really focus on India specific needs. We are a global platform with tie-ups with universities and companies, we also give full online degree courses as well.

Coursera is also going strong on its tie-up with corporate houses especially with the focus on reskilling. What’s the update for India?

Till mid last year, we had 80 corporates in India who have signed up with Coursera to upskill and reskill their employees. Today we have 150 businesses signed up with us. We have signed up with ICICI Bank, Axis Bank, Birlasoft among many others. But as companies start to hire from smaller cities as well, access to such a platform they also want to reskill these students who join the company.