SmartOn Learning, an innovative global education start-up, today announced its official launch into the Indian market. They will be developing the programs, which are career-oriented and will enable the students to get the employment commensuarate with their learning and capabilities.
The SmartOn recently launched its first program in India targeting e-commerce sector with a large reputed educational institution (Pearl Academy) with a batch of 250 students. The Company is currently developing programs in Entrepreneurship, Data Analytics and Cyber Security and is in the process of executing partnerships with half a dozen private Universities in India as clients.
This initiative of SmartOn has commenced from the true facts that our current education system is in complete disarray. Recent research has shown that less than 10% of MBA graduates are employable and 83% of engineering graduates are unfit for employment. About 50% of the universities have infrastructure deficiencies and near about 40% of Universities faculty position remain vacant.
India boasts of 700 universities and out of which 556 are run by state and central government and the remaining 154 are private universities. We have total of 35,540 colleges and out of which, 440 are autonomous colleges and 13,000 are diploma colleges. More than 2.6 crores students are enrolled in these higher education institutions, and another 42 lakhs students are enrolled for distance education. Despite this grand education infrastructure in the country, what these institutions churn out, is a matter of grave concern, not only for the students, but also for the state and central government.
This is not the proper forum to discuss about India’s education policy, but we would like to add that majority of private institutions are just distributing degrees to the gullible students by extracting huge amount as fees. It is time for the government to stem this rot in our education system. Not only private institutions, even government run universities and institutions suffer from outdated curriculum, lack of technology and access to international ways and methods to make the curriculum more effective and result-oriented.
On the other hand, SmartOn Learning programmes are targeting careers where there is a significant real-time demand and enabling students to learn in an interactive way to acquire effective and relevant knowledge. The company specializes in providing new-age career courses, developed in collaboration with leading industry partners and Universities. The programs are offered in blended format (combination of online & class-room based).
Starting with the Indian market, SmartOn Learning plans to tap international markets subsequently. Based on the “plug-and-play cloud based platform”, SmartOn Learning provides an innovative platform for higher education institutes catering to new age skills.
SmartOn has ambitious plans for its operations in India. They intend to enter into partnership with atleast 20 leading institutions in India by end of 2014. They have a target of generating revenue of 15-18 crores by the end of 2014. Currently, the company has offices in New York and Hyderabad. SmartOn has a global team consisting of 15 people working in the areas of content development, instructional design & pedagogy, technology & platform development, international relations and Operations. The Company has several prominent academicians,innovation & strategy experts,investors,senior industry executives as mentors and advisors.
