Paradigm shift in attaining prowess

Free online quality education is making headway in the United States, a country reeling from a financial crisis, with ever increasing cost of higher education and consequently, student debt. But it is in the developing countries such as Bangladesh that MOOCs (Massive Open Online Courses) are creating quite a stir. A recent report by the HarvardX research team revealed the number of students from Bangladesh to be 3,106 as of August 18th or 0.6 per cent of the worldwide enrollment for HarvardX courses offered via edX. Despite such dramatic proof of local student interest, there are still a lot of skepticism as to the efficacy and quality of these online courses.  October 10th was the second year anniversary of MOOCs. A few community members of Dhaka MOOC Exchange gathered to talk about their educational experiences both in various institutions of Bangladesh as well as through online resources such as MOOCs. These online courses are being provided by some of the top universities in the United States, MIT, Harvard, Stanford, Columbia, to name a few, for free through platforms such as Coursera, edX and Udacity.
 But listening to the Dhaka MOOC Exchange members, one soon loses those doubts.
Alin has a Bachelors degree in Finance from Dhaka University. He took an Introduction to Finance course from the University of Michigan at Coursera. He was amazed. The content of that one ten-week course was equivalent to four finance courses at his university. An indirect benefit of MOOCs for students is that now they can compare their own formal education with that of the best universities around the world. Additionally, the local educational institutions can benefit as well from these resources by improving their own quality of education delivered. In fact, the local curriculums are comparable to that of Stanford University or even MIT Sloan Business School, but it is often heard from students that local institutions cannot finish even half the syllabus in time.
The development sector is full of talk of poverty reduction. But most of that talk is focused around income, usually through entrepreneurship. What if we looked at the costs of education, for instance? And if we could make that single line item in every family's monthly budget to zero through the adoption of MOOCs, we will certainly see a drastic improvement in the standard of living throughout the country.
Rashid shared his educational experience of constantly getting disengaged. He felt there were holes in the curriculum that he was expected to cover without being given any instructions. Currently he is taking a few MOOCs through Coursera. He deeply believes there should be a step by step process for students so that they don't get lost in the system.
Shammunul, another community member, studying at Columbia University recently went to New York City as a Research Fellow at Columbia University. It has been possible by the power of online education and MOOCs which greatly helped him to land where he is today.
Alin used MOOCs to get a better job. He took Introduction to Computer Science at Udacity and at Codecademy, Introduction to R, a programming language used mainly for statistical analysis. Neither of these courses were part of his curriculum at Dhaka University, nor could he have taken them there formally even if he wanted to. Noting it on his CV, he was not only hired by his employer but was made the supervisor of a team of three holding similar finance degrees to himself. He admits not having noteworthy grades at DU, but given his MOOC knowledge, he was able to convince his employer he was qualified for the job.
Alin is not alone. More and more students outside of the Computer Science field are learning programming. Most are convinced that programming literacy not only enhances their marketable skills but also will be necessary in every field soon enough .MOOCs seem to be a good way to not only explore topics one wouldn't get within their academic discipline, but it's also a great way to keep highly capable students engaged and interested in learning. As the world becomes more and more complex, it has been acknowledged that we need a multi-disciplinary understanding of it to solve its most challenging problems. For these goals MOOCs can play a vital role in at least supplementing if not supplanting formal education.
The free online education revolution is here. Whatever complaints we may have about the education system, we are not alone and it is not a uniquely Bangladeshi problem. What will ultimately become of the education system is anyone's guess, but there's no excuse to not take advantage of the resources that are out there for free right now. Companies are looking more at portfolios of what a student has done rather than the fancy certificates they hold.
All of these stories and factors inspired the Bangladeshi MOOC takers to officially host an event. Dhaka MOOC exchange hosted its official launch event on November 18 with the theme of Disrupt. It was attended by fifty attendees ranging from students to professionals. With the acceleration and accumulation of our collective knowledge, the only way to scale the classrooms of the best teachers is online delivery. But at the same time, this reduces the one-on-one interactivity with these teachers, hence requiring students to become more self-reliant.
Learning these days is not just limited to schooling; it can be books outside of academia, films, documentaries, volunteerism, traveling, etc. One cannot just keep on learning, at some point, we have to take a break from learning and think about what we learned. Through thinking questions will arise in our mind, answers to which has to be sought. The search for the answers it may require online, academic or even field research. These activities will produce answers which have to be applied through projects and tested to see whether it works in the real world. It could be a product, a service, an app, a website or even something for free. In the not too distant future, we will interact with the world and each other through technology. Day by day, we're already doing so with platforms such as Google, Facebook, Twitter, etc. Knowing programming, one will be freer in that world, and not knowing it, he would be subjugated by it. Hence the facilitation of learning programming is one of Dhaka MOOC Exchange's goals.  There's a perception among the youth generation of Bangladesh and even in the general culture that one requires lots of money, donations, investments to implement whatever dream they have. Dhaka MOOC Exchange challenges that notion of dependency. Firstly, one doesn't need any money, or if so very little, to get things done. Secondly, we have the resources but not access to them. And thirdly, in order to have access to resources, one only needs the right relationships instead of cash. Someone can donate a venue, someone can donate a service or a product and pretty soon, one may have something of value with little or no capital investment. Understanding the importance of maintaining good relationships is the key to success.
Co-Founder of TeDx Dhaka [email protected]