What Does The Future Hold For Online Education?

Online education is the global perspective has taken on a new importance today. As specializations increase in scope and variety, and with the credit crunch imposed by economic recession, getting an admission in a course has become a complex, time consuming and expensive proposition. One of the main reasons for this is that prospective students wishing to take up a course experience difficulties in finding the course they want, which is inexpensive and takes place at a location convenient for them and where the quality of instruction is also high. The void, as such, is being fulfilled now by distance learning as never before.

The need for specialization is a commonly known professional requirement, and until a few years ago, traditional methods of specialization-training were most popular. Now-a-days, for the aforementioned reasons, and the sheer numbers of possibilities available to people, it is no longer easy to pursue such specializations and get the best out of the deal. Distance learning is offering prospective students the opportunity to study exactly what they desire, whenever and wherever they wish to and not have to pay exceedingly high costs of tuition fees, transportation and room and board. Distance learning has improved greatly over the last few years.

New institutions and well as new courses and new recognized accreditations are appearing online every day. The rising trend in improvement has been matched by the rising popularity of online education in recent years, with most institutions, colleges and Universities now offering all or part of their curriculum of courses online.

IES National center for education statistics conducted a survey for the academic year 2006-2007. Findings indicate that during the academic year;

- Distance education courses at all levels boasted 12.2 million enrollments in 2006 alone.

While for institutions offering these courses reveal that;

- 66 percent (two thirds) of 2 & 4-year degree-granting postsecondary institutions reported offering online or hybrid/blended online distance education courses at all levels.

- Sixty-five percent of the institutions reported offering college-level credit-granting distance education courses.

- Up to 15% of postsecondary schools offer college-level degree or certificate programs completely through distance learning, rising from a figure of 5-8% in only five years.

In another survey by the (US) department of education, it is revealed that;

- Distance education enrollments in the US rose from around 3.1 million in 2001 to the estimated 12.2 million in 2006.

- This number is set to increase at a gradual 18-19% per year and is expected to rise to approximately 18 million within the next four years.

According to the various findings as presented above, it can be seen that distance education has a solid foundation in popularity and is set to expand in every respect within the next few years. Corporations as well as individuals are turning to distance education for its convenience and ease; corporations recognize the potential in training individual employees (using distance learning vocational courses), while keeping them on as active work force at the same time. Meanwhile, students have the opportunity to work as well as they study and expand their horizons with an ease never before witnessed.