金融時報:MOOC改變命運？

MOOC改變命運？

大型開放式網(wǎng)絡(luò)課程(MOOC)在吸引越來越多人的興趣，而在印度等教育基礎(chǔ)設(shè)施欠缺的新興市場國家，MOOC更是展示出了啟動教育革命的力量。當(dāng)然，MOOC有一些值得注意的瓶頸問題。

測試中可能遇到的詞匯和知識：

landline ['læn(d)la?n] 路上通信線

tangible ['tæn(d)??b(?)l] 有幸的，可觸摸的

bundling ['b?ndli?] 捆綁銷售

cannibalise ['kænib?laiz] 拆用零件

bricks-and-mortar 有形的

Moocs might matter even more in emerging markets （683 words）

By Karan Khemka

Since 2011, when Stanford University launched its first “massive open online courses”, these free, internet-enabled programmes have cropped up everywhere, engaging millions of users. The largest Mooc providers – Coursera, Udemy, Udacity, and EdX – offer free tuition, supplied by universities, often to hundreds of thousands of students at a time. But just a year after Moocs really started taking off, offering the promise of real disruption to the centuries-old higher-education business, user growth has started to slow.

Until May this year, visitors to Moocs were increasing rapidly. But since then the picture has become markedly less rosy. Over the past quarter the major Mooc providers in the US have seen stagnation or slowing growth in visitor numbers. The “summer slump” across the education sector might normally explain this kind of drop. However, this comes even as the major platforms have supplemented their offerings with more new courses and high-profile partner universities.

The decline, however, has not been universal, and exceptions to the trend may offer hints about how the market for Moocs could develop. Available data on visits to the major Mooc sites between November 2012 and August 2013 indicate that visits from India have doubled over the past nine months. India still has only about a third the number of Mooc users as the US. But that still makes it the largest market for Moocs outside America, even though it has only a fraction of the broadband penetration. As a largely English-speaking country, India illustrates how Moocs might develop in emerging markets if more content was available in Vietnamese, Mandarin, Indonesian or Portuguese.

Furthermore, Indian Mooc users include a higher proportion of younger people, even controlling for India's large youth population: more than 80 per cent of Indian visitors to Mooc sites are under 34, while US and European visitors are fairly evenly spread across age groups. Indians also spend roughly five times as long as average visitors on Mooc sites.

Why India? It may be because India has the largest population of university-age students in the world (94m and growing), while higher education in India is inadequate in quantity and quality due to poor government regulation and corruption. With 17m students in higher education, India has one of the world's lowest higher-education enrolment ratios, even among developing nations.

Young Indians' enthusiasm for Moocs shows that there is an appetite for higher education, with or without sufficient supply of physical seats. But what is surprising is that Indians should be so motivated to visit Moocs when they are not yet accredited. You still cannot get a qualification from a Mooc. So are Moocs only aspirational for young Indians – the equivalent of flipping through a glossy university catalogue – or could they, in combination with targeted assessments, deliver tangible benefits to students and reap a return in exchange for outcomes delivered?

Many Mooc providers are already bundling courses into “packages” that roughly correspond to short certificated programmes. Universities still fear offering Mooc degrees, which could cannibalise fee-paying courses. But that will not stop ambitious education providers in emerging markets such as India offering real-world qualifications.

So Moocs could indeed be a disruptive development in emerging markets – where the majority of the world's youth reside. India lacks higher-education places but foreign universities face barriers to entry. So why not tap the Indian market through Moocs in combination with targeted assessments?

While it is unlikely that Moocs will dramatically change the economics of going to college for an American teenager, Moocs could be transformative in markets where there is not enough capacity to meet demand for university education. Just as some developing countries have bypassed fixed-line telephony for mobile solutions, Moocs could help developing countries to leapfrog the bricks-and-mortar model of higher education. And universities might be able to do well from them: for higher education, the fortune may indeed be at the bottom of the pyramid.

The writer is partner and co-head of the education practice at The Parthenon Group

請根據(jù)你所讀到的文章內(nèi)容，完成以下自測題目：

1.What do we know about the emergence of MOOC?

A.It was first launched by Stanford University.

B.User number is growing rapidly especially in US.

C.High-profile universities are not interested.

D.India is now the world's biggest market of MOOC.

答案(1)

2.What is the main reason that MOOC is prospering in India?

A.India is a largely English-speaking country.

B.India's internet penetration is quite high.

C.India has a huge supply and demand problem of education.

D.India's higher education system is poorly developed.

答案(2)

3.What is the biggest bottleneck of MOOC?

A.It cannot provide qualifications.

B.It lacks enough funding since it's free.

C.Universities would not offer high-profile courses.

D.It stops expanding in the developed world.

答案(3)

4.What does the writer suggest the providers of MOOC do in the future?

A.Provide courses in English, the global language.

B.Try to combine courses with targeted assessments.

C.Bypass bricks-and-mortar schools.

D.Develop courses on mobile platforms.

答案(4)

* * *

(1)答案：A.It was first launched by Stanford University.

解釋：A是正確答案。

這也是文章的第一句話。

B是錯誤的，因為用戶量在美國已經(jīng)have seen stagnation. C也是錯誤的，MOOC網(wǎng)站繼續(xù)引進了名校的課程后，增長仍然在減緩。而印度目前是僅次于美國的網(wǎng)絡(luò)公開課第二大市場。

(2)答案：C.India has a huge supply and demand problem of education.

解釋：C正確。

A是原因之一，但不是最主要原因：為何別的英語國家沒有這樣顯著的增長？ B是錯誤的，印度的互聯(lián)網(wǎng)滲透率頗低。C最準(zhǔn)確，9400萬大學(xué)年齡的印度年輕人，只有1700萬有大學(xué)上(one of the world's lowest higher-education enrolment ratios)。D只解釋了后面一半。

(3)答案：A.It cannot provide qualifications.

解釋：A是正確的。

(4)答案：B.Try to combine courses with targeted assessments.

解釋：B是正確的。A與作者原意相反：它們?nèi)绻罅刻峁h語印尼語葡萄牙語的課程，也可以促進這些國家的人們使用MOOC. C只是對未來MOOC的可能前景的一種展望。D未提到。