People seeking higher education to fulfill their personal, career and educational aspirations are often torn between the need to balance immediate family needs with the hard necessity of staying employed."

"Faced with the conflicting demands on their time, they often neglect or delay their dreams of higher education, frequently until it is too late. Yet to work effectively in our increasingly globalised economy, the need to continuously upgrade our knowledge and skills cannot be overemphasised," says Shrikant Sinha, Director, South India, U21 Global, a leading online learning portal.

Reasons why people select online and distance courses
~ Helps to manage education with a job
"Working under tight deadlines can be challenging. It can be all the more so when you want to enhance your knowledge base with a skill set that can prove an asset to you in the future. Here's where an online course comes in handy.

"I completed my instructional design course from Symbiosis Distance Learning Center. The experience taught me how to reserve fixed time for study matter on a regular basis. It also taught me how to juggle a tight schedule and find time to complete an online project before the set deadline," says Venkatesh Raghavan, Content Designer with the e-learning unit of an IT organisation.

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He continues, "The study matter was adequate but needed lot of mnemonics to internalise. The project was on storyboarding. It was quite an experience creating a storyboard from scratch in a short span of 20 to 25 days. The experience has stood me in good stead. The six-month course is worthwhile for people who are entering the instructional design arena."

~ Offers flexibility of time and location
You don't have to travel anywhere to start your classes and reap the benefits of courses that offer you opportunities to grow in life. You can do that right from your home and that too at a time that is convenient to you, be at 2 in the morning or 10 at night. So, come back from office and get into a 'classroom' right in the comfort of your home!  

~ Provides a wider choice of institutions: Selection from a broad spectrum is possible with online courses and you don't have to confine your search just based on geographic locations. Most institutes have affiliations with universities all across the world to bring diverse courses and learning right to your home. 

For instance, U21Global's affiliated universities include:

• North America: McGill University, Tecnologico de Monterrey, University of British Columbia, University of Virginia
• Europe: Lund University, University College Dublin, University of Birmingham, University of Edinburgh, University of Glasgow, University of Nottingham
• East Asia: Fudan University, Korea University, National University of Singapore, Shanghai Jiao Tong University, University of Hong Kong,
• Australia & New Zealand [Images]: University of Auckland, University of Melbourne, University of New South Wales, University of Queensland

~ Promotes learning for people with other responsibilities and physical challenges
Quite a few among us are saddled with responsibilities and find it tough to travel out of home due to personal reasons. Be it a woman who wants to study further but can't due to family constraints or people who find it physically impossible to move out of their home and to cope with the rigours of commuting along with trying to face the challenges imposed by the outside world that may not always be sensitive to their needs.

This is where online and distance courses can come in extremely handy. People can get their qualifications and opt to work from home to make money and be financially independent.   

~ Helps with promotions and growth in life
*Neeta Sanghvi, a team leader three years ago, is now a project manager with a leading IT company in Mumbai and she mentions with a glint in her eyes, "My delivery head mentioned just the day before that I am seriously being considered for a prestigious on-site project. The client was always happy with my work but for the on-site posting, they preferred somebody with a formal MBA.

"It was at my mid-term appraisal two and half years ago that my manager suggested going in for an online course. So, while it was a stretch when I was trying to manage office with further studies and attempting to have a life all at the same time, believe me, it is every bit worth it. Not that the degree has made me any smarter, but it has definitely increased my professional development! And not to mention, more respect from my fiancee who holds a highly-acclaimed MBA degree from the US."

~ Costs less than the traditional courses
One of the key benefits of enrolling for distance courses is that you save on the amount spent on residential and traveling costs etc. So, the money you need to spend is only for the course registration, course material, exam fee etc, thus enabling you to save a big chunk of expenses.

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You don't have to spend on getting together with your classmates either, as you can meet them all online, without having to spend anything on the get-together!

Colleges and Universities
There are as host of colleges and institutions that offer you options to courses and advanced learning. Some of the more prestigious colleges that offer a wide gamut of online courses for the working professional are:

~ IGNOU (degree courses in BCA, MCA, BIT based on IT technical education and several others),
~ ICFAI,
~ IIM (Business management courses with international exposure),
~ U21Global,
~ IIT,
~ BITS, Pilani (masters level course in computer science in distance education) and many many more.

Courses on offer

• Master degree programmes
• Postgraduate diploma programmes
• Bachelor degree programmes
• Diploma programmes
• Certificate programmes

How these courses work
Online learning is enhanced by the use of interactive multimedia, authoring and production software, web and/ or intranet for delivering instruction and tracking learner results and other related information.

A stable, well-thought out learning management system (LMS) is what keeps these courses going. Some advanced-level programmes also allow you to create your own course structure that will best suit your corporate initiatives, business requirements, learning objectives, competency requirements or any other individual needs.

One can get the any or all of the following support from their courses:

~ Video/audio/VSAT lectures
~ Specially-designed courseware
~ Assignments
~ Academic/professional counseling
~ Guidance for practical training
~ Projects and reports
~ Online evaluation and grading

"When we look at the demand for postgraduate education particularly an MBA, we see that it will be impossible for traditional education sources to cater to such demand. It is just too much and especially in our region.

"Many educational institutions are looking at online education as an alternative to assist them in coping with the demand. One of the biggest challenges is the need to change the mindsets. Often, we don't like to change and don't see that doing things differently is better. However, this is not an option anymore," sums up Sinha on the need for using online courses to bridge the gap between fewer quality institutes, increasing need for higher qualifications for progress and continual learning in our competitive times.