🔊 Listen Post McGraw-Hill Education, a learning science company, informed that in 2015 unit sales of digital platforms and programmes exceeded those of print in its US Higher Education Group, for the first time. In the previous year, the company also expanded the number of adaptive offerings for US higher education to over 1,400, up from 40 in 2012. Increasingly, educators are turning to adaptive programmes, which have been shown to improve engagement, student retention, test scores and pass rates. The company saw double-digit growth in activations across its key digital offerings in 2015. The key digital platforms and programmes that reported strong year-over-year growth are Connect, LearnSmart, SmartBook and ALEKS.

David Levin, President and CEO, McGraw-Hill Education, said, “Our transition to providing digital products that offer better outcomes at meaningfully lower prices is going really well. In fact, as students returned to college in early 2016, they activated 1.2 million subscriptions to our Connect platform during January and February, a double-digit increase over the previous year.”

“We are also delighted that for nearly all the courses for which students purchase Connect, they can also order a loose-leaf print version of the textbook for as little as $25 and we continue to encourage those who want print alongside digital to use this very inexpensive option,” he added.

A potential trend of test owners are moving from pen-and-paper to computer-based testing (CBT) delivery in India, reveals a recently published report. Of the 47 per cent, who currently use pen-and-paper, 33 per cent said they are likely to move to CBT in the near future. The vast majority of all test owners, i.e. 81 per cent stated that there is no alternative to CBT as it is more reliable.

The study, conducted by Pearson VUE in partnership with IMRB, surveyed senior managers from 100 exam-owning companies and institutions in the medical, legal, finance, IT and higher education sectors. About 43 per cent reported challenges in developing new assessment content, and 38 per cent expressed difficulty in maintaining the relevancy of their assessment. The survey reveals the challenges of knowing whether an exam accurately measures relevant competency, with 38 per cent test owners finding the restrictions of the exam format itself a challenge – which may in part have an impact on the ability to fulfil the test purpose.

The report, “Improving India’s Exam Standards: Challenges Facing Test Owners”, also found that about 46 per cent are concerned that candidates are cheating in exams, and a third are concerned with candidate impersonation. There is also concern about test paper leakage (39 percent), which is a problem associated with pen-and-paper rather than CBT.

Divyalok Sharma, director of client development at computer-based testing company Pearson VUE, said, “Assessment content, or in other words the test questions, is the lifeblood of an exam. Focusing on that content is key to the success of an exam programme, along with finding ways to make exams more relevant not only in terms of legislation and up-to-date processes, but also making sure it is relevant to the professional role that person will eventually hold. It is equally important for test owners in India to review their current test development practices and standards and follow international best practices in testing.

“There are a number of inter-related factors and processes that can cause an exam to succeed or fail, including understanding of test objectives, robust test design, appropriate test format, good quality test questions and the statistical analysis of questions. These factors also contribute to the ultimate goal of creating a valid, fair and reliable test,” he added.

Imarticus Learning, a platform offering certified industry-endorsed courses, has raised a round of funding from a bunch of investors. These include: Amit Nanavati, Investor and Entrepreneur;  Tashwinder Singh, Director, KKR; Anil Gudibande, 1 Crowd Founder/Ex MD RBS; Taranjit Jaswal, Director, Barclays; and, Amit Khanna, Ex-KPMG Partner. The newly raised capital will be used to expand the eLearning business in India as well as in the Asian Markets.

Nikhil Barshikar, Founder and MD, Imarticus Learning, said, “The company has been aggressively expanding its product portfolio in Finance and Analytics for its B2C segment while building out a comprehensive B2B portfolio, which includes Staffing, Agile Hiring and Corporate Training. It has developed over 20 programmes available through offline and online delivery channels. The B2B portfolio has corporate training, train and hire mandates and management development.”

With an estimated $100 billion market size and a growth rate of over 18 per cent, the education sector in India alone is poised to witness major growth in the years. Asia is the second largest market with revenues from e-Learning products in Asia projected to reach $12.1 billion in 2018, up from $7.9 billion in 2013. The goal will be to set up a state of the art technology infrastructure to help scale the retail platform domestically and internationally, focusing initially on the UAE, Hong Kong and Indonesia markets.

Intel, the multinational tech giant has entered into a partnership with Extramarks, a digital education company, to tap into the $40-billion private school sector in India.

Under the partnership, Intel would provide Extramarks with technology and hardware support and Extramarks would provide its partner schools and students with tablets, interactive board, personal computers and other digital equipment.

Extramarks is a kindergarten to Class 12 digital learning solutions provider, delivering various in-school and after-school solutions accessible both online and offline.

Intel has worked with various state governments in India on different digital education programmes, its tie-up with Extramarks is the first major step taken by Intel to enter the private education sector.

Extramarks which was launched in 2009 has 8,000 schools on board and would be adding around 50,000 smart classrooms by next year. The company, which has been till now working with schools on a B2B platform, plans to provide services directly to students as well. By next year, Extramarks would be catering to around seven million students.

NIIT Limited, a global leader in skills and talent development has received an overwhelming response for its 12th National Industry Targeted Aptitude Test (NITAT) conducted on February 13, 2016. NITAT 2016 witnessed 93,068 applicants, 47,311 test takers, among which 35,178 students qualified. The examination was conducted in over 150 cities nationwide. Over past 11 years, more than 1 million aspirants have been benefited by the test.

NITAT helps the students and graduates to access their potential and aptitude for careers across multiple sectors. The test has been designed as an objective test of reasoning, comprehension, data interpretation skills and behavioural traits. Every student is entitled to receive a personalised scorecard that will give his/her Aptitude Ranking (concentric graphical form) on National and Zonal basis.

Shivan Bhargava, Group President, Skills and Careers Group, NIIT Ltd, said, “The response that NITAT has received from the students across India is unprecedented. We commenced NITAT 11 years ago with an aim to recognise skilled workforce to meet the demands of the IT industry. Today, NITAT has evolved from being just an IT aptitude test to the one that assesses student’s career readiness quotient across multiple domains like IT, Banking and Finance. We are confident that NITAT will continue to help students access their skills for multiple career domains.”

NIIT’s pioneering initiative NITAT was introduced in 2004 to enable graduates and students pursuing their studies in engineering, arts, commerce and science streams to gauge their aptitude for a career in the IT sector, identify skills further required, if any, and thus systematically charter their career into the IT industry. Today the test has evolved as a powerful tool that assesses student’s aptitude across multiple domains, including IT, Banking and Finance. The test is designed scientifically to assess students and provide a relative ranking system, which helps them to identify their position amongst all test takers.