In a class, the lecturer is holding an interactive session. You don’t pay attention, and he quizzes you. A regular classroom? We are not talking direct learning here. This is a virtual classroom, the new way of distance learning.
A boon for working people who cannot afford to attend regular courses, it’s like any other normal programme. The only difference — your teacher may be at any of the IIMs or any other premier educational institution far away interacting with you on a computer screen.
Acting as a link between the institutes and students is Direcway Global Education (DWGE) which has its virtual classrooms spread in 32 cities across the country and offers a host of interactive onsite learning programmes from institutes like the Indian Institute Management, XLRI Jamshedpur, Indian Institute of Foreign Trade, Narsi Munji Institute of Management Studies, Mumbai and many more.
The one-year executive programme in Business Management, Post-Graduate certificate in Financial Management, Executive Masters in International Business and one-year programme in Development of Strategic Skills are only some of the onsite courses offered by Direcway.
These courses are mainly targeted at working professionals and are designed to suit their convenience. Courses are offered as full-time or part-time, evening or day classes and weekend programmes which grant maximum flexibility to students who can attend lectures from any DWGE centre across the country.
“Since working professionals are on the move, the option to access their courses from any of our 32 centres gives them added advantage,” says Murli Sundaram, DWGE Regional Manager for western region.
The courses cost anything between Rs 32,000 and Rs 1,80,000. If students miss a lecture, they are provided with recorded CDs.
Professor Ranjan Das from IIM, Kolkata says, “This is very different from the other onsite learning programmes. The two-way audio and interaction makes all the difference.”
For answer to a query, a click can put put you on air. The computer screen shows the lecturer and the slides he keeps showing the student. Want to take a break? Just click on ‘pause’ and the teacher will know you are not in ‘class’.
“Students are admitted after looking at their qualification, work experience, written examination or personal interview, depending on how a particular institute selects its students,” says Bhavina Trivedi, centre incharge for Ahmedabad. During the course, students are assessed on the basis of online assignments, online terminal exams and final exams on paper for which a team from the institute comes down.
Udayan M, who works as Service Delivery Lead at IBM Global Services, Bangalore, says, “Doing a course from IIM Kozhikode through DWGE made me abreast of the latest in the industry. It helped me broaden my perspective and enhanced my skills apart from providing me with wonderful networking with other professionals in different cities. The best part was that I was selected for my present job just after the completion of my course.” Before doing this course, he had a BSc degress in Mathematics.