Earlier there was education. Then came distance education. Now in the Net age, there is e-learning, i.e., education on the web. First there was gurukul. Now there's e-gurucool.

In India, the concept of distance education was developed and made famous by Indira Gandhi National Open University (IGNOU) and Osmania University, which provided an ideal opportunity to people working to get degrees from a national university with good resources without hassles of attending classes. All you had to do was to read the course material, send the completed assignments and appear for tests at different times. It was a God-send opportunity for students aiming to pursue an additional degree in addition to their current degree. And these open universities had greater reach than the physical university, with students registering from all over the country.

But things have changed with the coming of the worldwide web.

Here's a classroom, which is just a click away. You can get started whenever you have time, and can get as comfortable as you want to be. And you can start studying from where ever you are, be in Timbuktu or in Antarctica. All you need is a PC and an Internet connection. This is the virtual learning on the World Wide Web.

What does a typical online education website offers?

Essentially, online universities offer online chats with experts in the education, an online counseling with the career experts, content on various relevant topics, and generally a link to the websites with job opportunities. Online education is a big market, experts say. According to a report by IDC on e-learning puts the existing market at $ 600 million annually, which will exceed to $ 10 billion by 2002. Ninety two percent of the large organisations in the US are implementing some form of online learning; eighty five percent of the schools will have some form of online learning by 2002. Over 2 million students are expected online by 2002.

Similar confidence is exuded by the organisations such as NIIT, which have launched netvarsity.com. Online education is now being touted as another big idea. As a result many websites have come up in recent times to offer online education, To name a few sites, there are - eGurucool, joincollege.com, classteacher.com, claasontheweb.com, blackboard.com, brainvisa.com, zeelearn.com, educationbangalore.com, smartforce.com, elementk.com, digitalthink.com, lifelonglearning.com, recently launched padahee.com and so on. These are generally for the Indians in India. And for Indians looking towards studies abroad, they can log onto scholarships.com to look for appropriate scholarships.

And these sites have been well funded. Investors have recognised the potential in he online education field. Chrysalis, a $ 65 million fund has invested in e-Gurucool, Infinity Ventures has invested in BrainVisa.com and so on. And these sites have formed associations with various schools to provide their teaching material online. E-gurucool even ran a 24 hr helpline during the Class XII exams.

And these sites are doing well. Aptech and NIIT have e-learning sites, which they claim score on an average about a million daily page views. Onlinevarsity.com, which is promoted by Aptech, is positioned as a comprehensive education portal offering education in IT and non-IT fields. There's another big venture Netvarsity.com, promoted by software training center major, NIIT. Netvarsity.com offers services including online testing, online counseling, useful tips and experts' panel to answer student's queries.

Thus online education, though it has big potential and backing of software majors, is handicapped by low levels of Internet penetration in India. Apart from the top public schools in Indian metros, in the small cities and towns, majority of schools is lacking in computers. While in metros and state capitals, unlike in small countryside towns school students are very tech savvy. Cost of computers is another handicap. Limited telephone connections is one of the problems. Even many places where phone is there, Internet has just reached but the speed is pathetic.

But things are changing, and changing fast. Phones are more easily available fast, with a month unlike wait of a few years a decade back. Though it reached major towns like Lucknow a couple of year ago, it is being taken to the other towns fast. With the Investments in broadband being made, access to net and data transmission on the net will become fast. And with the ISPs slashing their rates to rock bottom, and the free ISPs like Caltiger making their presence in towns apart from metros, penetration will increase fast. And with the cost of computers falling down in the past two years, computers have finally reached the Indian middle class even in small towns. And it's obvious that once these small towns become net savvy, it will drive the revolution.

And what is Internet all about these days. It's the potential, silly!

Sandeep Dhaka
Zygote Technologies.