S. Vishnu Sharma
upGrad, a company into higher education provision just moved their start dates for all their 40 courses to start every month instead of quarterly to take on the surge in demand from working professionals.
This has more than doubled the course capacity for upGrad, and each class now has a peak of 1000 learners at a given time.
The larger the class in online, the more active the peer-to-peer learning and so it’s the inverse of offline learning, says Ronnie Screwvala, Co-founder and Executive Chairman, upGrad.
Last month upGrad reached 5,00,000 learners for its online programs, which is no mean feat in itself. Now taking into consideration that their average ARPU is INR 2.5 lakhs, he said.
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‘Yet, we are only at the very start of addressing a market of over 100 million working professionals and graduates.’
This quarter, upGrad’s revenues will cross an annual run rate of INR 500 Cr with the launch of their Live Learning platform free of cost to multiple colleges and universities, to replicate their classrooms online and address their students during the Covid-19 period seamlessly.
upGrad also separately recorded 10,000 enrollments for their 350 hours of free courses initiated during this period.
About upGrad
Founded in early 2015, upGrad offers online programs for working professionals. In a short span of around five years, upGrad on-boarded over 53K paid learners and impacted more than 500K individuals globally, making it India’s largest online higher-education company, basis gross revenue generated from the Indian market in FY18-19.
upGrad provides programs in the areas of Data Science, Technology, Management and MBA to college students, working-class and enterprises.
These programs are designed and delivered in collaboration with top-notch universities like IIT Madras, IIIT-B, BITS Pilani, MICA, NMIMS Global Access, Duke CE, Deakin University, Liverpool John Moores University and others.
To further enhance the learning experience, a comprehensive ecosystem has been built which includes one-on-one mentoring, peer-to-peer learning, industry networking and most importantly expert career guidance providing learners’ holistic support to elevate their careers to the next level.
The company has been awarded the title of ‘Best Tech for Education’ by IAMAI in 2019. The company received the ‘Best Education Brands’ award by Economic Times, Most Innovative Companies in India’ by Fast Company in 2017 and has made it to LinkedIn’s ‘Top 25 Startups’ two years in a row in 2018 and 2019.
About online education
Online learning has come a long way in India. The present outbreak of corona virus has perhaps further strengthened it.
How to learn when there are no class rooms at a time when COVID-19 is forcing many of us to stay home is a big question.
Similarly, at a time when students cannot approach their teachers for clearing their doubts, the question is who will do it for them. In both the circumstances, online learning has become a viable option.
Availability of high-speed internet, computers, lap-tops and mobile phones at various price ranges has also contributed towards boom of online education.
Internet has changed the way do our day-to-day activities. Internet revolutionized the way we do our banking transactions, it has altered the way we do business. Even shopping for our daily needs has the presence of internet.
After influencing our daily life, job life it is now changing our study life. This type of learning has proved to be an ideal one especially when there is an outbreak of a disease causing virus.
A few interesting facts about online education in India is that its market was said to be about 230 million USD in 2016, the same is about to reach over 1.8 billion USD by 2021.
These facts show that scope for online education is tremendous. This has turned into a blessing for those who are already employed and are looking for further learning to improve growth prospects in their jobs. Many are likely to take to online education as it is likely to be cost effective compared to the physical classroom education.