E-Learning Trends of the Year 2020: 12x Growth in Popularity of Online Trainings in the Past 5 Years

COVID-19 has brought a significant transformation in the Indian education industry compelling learners to learn in-demand skills and explore new career opportunities through online trainings. However, even before the lockdown was announced, students preferred choosing a mix of classroom-based and online learning. The rise of online learning has primarily been due to the engaging and interactive content and affordable, accessible, and flexible nature coupled with internet penetration. The number of enrolments in online trainings have shown 12x growth in the past 5 years (2015-2020) indicating students' growing interest to upskill digitally. In fact, the popularity of online trainings grew exponentially within the past 2 years with 100% growth in enrolments from 2018 to 2020.

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Learners' growing eagerness to understand technology, advancements in the LMS, growing demand for practical knowledge and skills, mobile phones' role in online education, and inexpensive internet and training enrolment costs are few major reasons why more students are opting for e-learning lately.

With existing organisations shifting their operations online and start-ups venturing into online businesses, the requirement of skilled programmers and website developers is growing more than ever. Owing to this, Programming with Python and Web development are the top in-demand online trainings with 26% and 23% enrolments respectively. Out of the total enrolments, 19% of the students opted for online digital marketing training to learn advanced marketing concepts such as web analytics, blogging, SEO, email marketing, mobile marketing, and online advertisements to help brand ideas reach the mass audience creatively.

While studying online, 57% of the learners preferred using a desktop/laptop as a bigger screen helps in better accessibility of the features, controls, and functions of the LMS. Students can navigate between multiple tabs, make notes, learn and download the training videos simultaneously, do additional research while learning, and can complete assignments at a faster pace. 43% of the learners who preferred easy accessibility of the training anytime, anywhere, choose to learn through mobile phones.

As the employment opportunities of today's digital era demand more practical knowledge and domain and soft skills, 40% of the students enrolled in an online training with the aim of gaining a new skill. 33% of the students did a training with the expectation to get an internship/job in future in different technical or non-technical roles such as mobile app developer, ethical hacker, data science expert, marketing manager, graphic designer, and advertising and social media manager. The interest and participation of male and female learners in online trainings stood at 57% and 43% respectively.

Over time, the inclusion of features such as interactive video tutorials, exercises and quizzes, assignments and projects, doubt clearing Q&A forum, and placement assistance have made online trainings more engaging and beginner-friendly than ever. Therefore, 55% of the students, out of the total enrolments in a training, successfully completed their training. Interesting illustrations and examples, speech recognition engine, and peer grading system keep the students hooked to the trainings.

Online trainings are easily accessible, highly affordable, save huge costs of relocating to study in metro cities, and allow self-paced learning even in the remote areas of the country. Therefore, 55% of the total enrolments came from tier-2 and tier-3 cities highlighting how digital awareness is growing across small cities and towns of the country.

Summer vacations allow learners to take a break from their hectic academic schedule, do an internship, explore different fields to build a career, build a project, and learn new domain and soft skills. Summer months from March to June are the most popular months when students opt for online training with the highest enrolments in June (4.63 times the number in October). December is the 3rd most popular month for online learning as learners aim to spend their winter break productively too.

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With education institutions closing down in India from March to ensure social-distancing, students have experienced a huge academic loss and learning gap. Schools and universities are still facing the limitations of building an interactive online learning system, training teachers to take online classes and completing the syllabus, ensuring high participation of students, and getting the assignments, tests, or exams done on time. Education institutions have been encouraging the students to enrol in online skill-based trainings and students themselves have showcased a huge interest in upskilling online. The months of March-May 2020 saw a huge surge in enrolments in online trainings owing to the impact of COVID-19.

Courtesy: Internshala Trainings (trainings.internshala.com) – an online training platform