Elevating higher education with cloud

-By Sreekumar Sreedharan, SVP and Service Offering Head, Oracle Practice, Infosys

India’s higher education system is the world’s second largest, with 58,000+ institutions and 43.3 million enrolled students. But much needs to be fixed, including lack of access and affordability, not to mention the poor quality of education that is leading to more than half of the country’s graduates being unemployable. Educational institutions also have several practical challenges, from inadequate infrastructure and faculty shortages to weak governance and insufficient industry connect.

On the bright side, India’s higher education sector can now resolve most of these problems with cloud computing. Take accessibility, for instance. At present, the gross enrolment ratio (GER) in higher education is just 28.4 per cent, owing to several factors including low income, lack of awareness, sociocultural barriers, and poor educational infrastructure in rural and remote areas. These ...