The era of free education is eye catching title. Under the past 15 years, we are transit from elearning to free education through massive open online course (MOSS) model, just need to paid for the certification if you really need one. Human society had transit from knowledge is power to knowledge is commodity.
Thru digital transformation (DT) process, elearning had make previous formerly knowledge document down in digital way, even can record in video for replay on demand, and mass distribution at the marginal cost almost to zero for unlimited scale.
Immediate challenges for traditional education sector is we had more and more entry into “me-too” offering, and lower or almost close to zero cost alternative. The learner is now open in “over choice” due to over supply right now. Off course the global top education and higher learning institutions continue to be competition free, but for the rest will require compete in aggressive way to stay in the same business.
Same hold true for any company use to provide various specialised training as main business revenue. Under the digital transformation (DT) society, not all the “training” customer willing to pay it anymore. In the past use to get it thru onsite or human lecture mode, due to rise of low cost computer based training (CBT) or completely free training available and can provide 24x7x365 access and replay and on demand training mode, it start to transform the education, training and development (ETD) market.
To position strategic right in the digital transformation (DT) society, purely reacting will make you out of business. You need better crafted value proposition and why you are the only one for certain education, training and development product (ETD) in the market.
Thru MOSS model, more and more people around the world get access to global famous university and higher education institutions classes for nothing. For example, US MIT (Massachusetts Institute of Technology) over the past 15 years, had been offering 2,200 courses free. Every course is categorized by topic, course number, department and offers an incredibly vast array of subjects to dive in to. From courses such as Relativistic Quantum Field Theory to Music Recording Techniques & Audio Production, you can watch lectures, read study materials, and take exams from pretty much every single course offered at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. One question in everyone mind now, why paid for education then? as such, education sector is start to transform charge for certification instead, for those who need to certified their education records.
We can painting the future now, companies will start remove the requirement for an official degree and are relying more on experience and well executed interviews to obtain qualified employees, since education and certification alone their value is completely shifted.
We are no discredit a university education and degree. As mentioned and highlight above, the value shift and digital transformation, require you to act now faster than anyone else. With the access to information thru open internet today, employee learning self motivation play a key role, and university and higher education need to adjust their roles and value proposition for something provide more value, rather than just pure course and certification alone.
E-SPIN active in assist client in various digital transformation challenges across industries and sectors. Feel free to contact E-SPIN for meaningful digital transformation engagement that shape the world.
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