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September - 2016 - issue > In My Opinion

Free Online Learning - A Scalable Solution to India's Skills Shortage

Mike Feerick, Founder & CEO, ALISON
Monday, September 26, 2016
Mike Feerick, Founder & CEO, ALISON
Headquartered in Ireland, ALISON is the e-Learning platform proffering free online learning through interactive multimedia for basic education and workplace skill training.

The government of India's stated aim of creating a 500 million strong skilled workforce by 2022 is both ambitious and an economic necessity. The only way to up-skill so many people in a meaningful way in such a short space of time is to embrace and develop the growing opportunity of free online learning.

India and the world must face this unique challenge together. It is estimated that by 2022, 17 percent of the world's workforce will reside in India making the up-skilling imperative not just an Indian but an international one. According to a 2014 Economic report, by the National Skills Development Authority, only 2 percent of India's workforce is adequately skilled for the modern workplace.

Free workplace learning solutions pioneered since 2005 are changing the up-skilling landscape of the world of work at a very rapid pace. Free learning ecologies have the capacity not just to change and empower individual lives, but to change and empower whole economies. Freemium models hold the greatest potential. The view of 'Free' services as somehow inferior is being left well behind as people fully accept and engage with other no cost services such as Facebook, Google and LinkedIn, knowing full well that a flexible business model allows these companies to be both free and hugely profitable at the same time.

Free learning ecologies mean that the cost of providing education and skills training is not born by the student directly, but by advertising and the sale of optional parchment and other learner premium (paid) management solutions. All learners can access the learning for free once they can gain access to the internet, currently estimated at 35 percent of the population of 1.36 billion people.


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