NEED OF ONLINE EDUCATION IN INDIAN LIFE SCIENCES SECTOR_Essay by Dr. T. Shri Vijaya Kirubha

We are presenting the series of essays submitted for the 1st Annual Pharma Literati Essay contest. The opinions in the essay are by the authors and need to be endorsed by Pharma Literati team. 

Dr. T. Shri Vijaya Kirubha, Head, Dept. of Pharmacognosy

Periyar College of Pharmaceutical Sciences

Tiruchirappalli -620 021, TamilNadu, India.

INTRODUCTION:

“Education is what remains after one has forgotten what one has learned in school.”
—Albert Einstein.

             Einstein’s words aptly reflect the fact that effective education is constant and always evolving.  Education is not preparation for life; education is life itself. In fact, the face of education has experienced a sea change over the decades. Once characterised by the traditional classroom model, education has metamorphosed into learning that is instant, online, self-driven and on the go. The journey of education in India, too, has been dotted with innumerable milestones - the most recent among these is online education.

Owing to the steady economic growth and globalisation, education in India is no longer just a teacher talking to a bunch of students in a classroom. With more than 370 million internet users and hundreds of local as well as global business tycoons willing to invest in the future of education, online education in India has picked up pace. In fact, the e-learning market in the country is estimated to be worth more than $3 billion.

India is now the third largest online market for education in the world. This enables people to take better advantage of the resources available online. In fact, online education helps people get access to a world-class learning experience when traditional higher education is simply not possible due to financial or personal constraints. These days, employers look for more than just the basic skill set in their employees, they look for a long-term relationship with the organisation. Often, appraisals and promotions are awarded on the basis of skillfulness.

The typical Indian classroom was once characterized by students sitting through hour-long teacher monologues. Now, technology is making life easier for both students and educators. Schools are increasingly adopting digital teaching solutions to engage with a generation of pupils well-versed with the likes of PlayStations and iPods, and trying to make the classroom environment more inclusive and participatory.

All in a Tab

Online education (e-learning) makes the teaching-learning process very easy and interesting. In line with this increasing interest in technology for education, there has been a rush of education-focused tablet computers in the market.

            The rapid increase in internet connectivity has been an important catalyst for the growth of e-learning. Indian companies are adopting e-learning platforms as continuous employee learning has become a strategic necessity.

With the number of internet users in India expected to reach 250 million, rivalling the US and second only to China, India’s potential as a huge market for e-learning is enormous. A large number of new users are accessing the internet for the first time from their smartphones, which is an ideal, personalised and commerce-enabled platform for e-learning adoption.

According to a report, India’s online education market size is set to grow to $40 billion by 2017 from the current $20 billion. India has one of the largest education systems in the world with a network of more than 1 million schools and 18,000 higher education institutions. More than half of the country’s 1.2 billion population falls in the target market for education and related services.

A business opportunity:

In underdeveloped and developing countries, e-learning raises the level of education, literacy and economic development. This is especially true for countries where technical education is expensive, opportunities are limited and economic disparities exist.

LIFE SCIENCES SECTOR – ONLINE EDUCATION

The life sciences sector comprising of pharmaceutical, biotech and healthcare segments is increasingly achieving positive revenues globally, sustained in part due to emerging markets and generally encouraging worldwide, economic and demographic trends. The pharmaceutical industry has already achieved revenues up-to $1.23 trillion in 2014, an all-time-high, with biopharmaceuticals making up about 20% of the market share. This positive trend indicates the life science industry’s ability to endure conditions of hostile economies, fluctuating markets, constantly evolving technologies and shifting population profiles and still emerge on an escalating path.

The backbone of this sector, the Research &Development wing has conventionally remained capital intensive due to long development and approval cycles. The number of new drug approvals by the US FDA has been steadily increasing in the past two years with 35 new approvals in 2013, a figure last achieved in 1997. The scenario seems more optimistic considering the fact that the majority of newly approved drugs are either first-in-class drugs or orphan drugs, signifying the industry’s capability to achieve results regardless of cost cutting measures.

Major trends expected to affect the life sciences sector in the coming years are novel capital sources, shifting demographics, changing healthcare trends, new target diseases, technological advances and transforming market scenarios. Rise in costs of drug development has led to the increased outsourcing of specialty functions, especially those involved in drug development and clinical research.

Other key trends observed in the past few years that are expected to affect the industry growth in the coming years, are the evolution and growth of personalized medicine, increasing technology based innovations in health care and rising use of patient and consumer data in the drug development process.

Along with these encouraging trends and opportunities, the life sciences sector also faces some interesting challenges that can affect the business scenario in the near future. As regulatory authorities are making stringent demands for more accurate and detailed data during approval processes, companies are required to maintain comprehensive patient and product data along with improved data capture and management processes. With the increasing use of electronic data capture systems, cloud computing and data sharing, the need for improved systems capable of protection from cyber-attacks and data leakage has heightened.

Online education is making its presence felt across industries and the Life-sciences domain is no exception. It has seen an increased momentum in adopting newer technologies to satisfy learner needs and increasing efficacy of learning. Needless to say, time and cost savings are added benefits.

Pharmaceuticals:

This is a hi-tech industry, where manufacturers have to spend a lot on training. With e-learning, training needs of the industry can well be addressed.

• With e-learning, course material is available to the learners, via Intranet or Internet, ensuring easy availability. A course can be uniformly made available to all personnel – across offices.
• Courses are often rich in theory and refresher courses have to be made available from time to time. With advances in the field, updates are also necessary. e-Learning gives room for this to be possible, seamlessly.
• The nature of the courses is often very staid but learner interest can be increased with the inclusion of graphics and even audio-visuals.
• Assessments from time to time are also made possible, ensuring the readiness of a recruit to start work.
• Since pharmaceutical industry deals with a lot of regulations, compliance training is another area where e-learning has been exceptionally effective in delivery.
• These trainings have to be completed by every single employee of the company and within a specific time frame. e-Learning platforms are successful in ensuring that every employee has completed the course, putting forward the ones who are lagging behind and providing assessments, as per requirement.

Contract Research Organizations:

Contract Research in the field of Life-Sciences is an area where investments are high and the results expected – flawless. Training in this sector is also of high importance and an area where e-learning has fruitfully contributed.

• Standard courses have to be completed by employees, like in the pharma sector, before they can embark on their assignments. e-Learning contributes here – by offering courses which are easily available, can be updated and re-circulated from time to time.
• A special need of this sector is that it is forever in a state of flux. Newer technologies, discoveries and advancements in the field of bio-sciences have to be incorporated in the Research industry. e-learning makes this constant flow of information available to companies and their employees. It helps the top-managers to be confident that their teams are well-informed – surely the most important requirement in field of Contract Research.
• Compliance is also needed, as this too is a closely regulated industry. Most research companies depend on e-learning for the dissemination of regulatory mandates for their employees, and swear by the effectiveness.

Health-care Services:

Health-care Services form the largest section of the Life-sciences industry as a whole. Trainings for doctors and surgeons are conducted thoroughly and within strict guidelines. The training for nursing and administrative staff, however, is not so streamlined. While there is no dearth of available content, it is the presentation that often lacks force.

• Blended learning for nursing and administrative staff is often a successful formula for effective training.
• Introductory courses can be part of an e-learning curriculum, which lays down the theories. Hospital policies, regulations, compliance’s – can all be a part of this module.
• Background information on medical equipments can be made available, including intricacies of how they work, their care, maintenance and so on.
• Instructor led course can also be developed using e-learning technologies, which provide a touch-and-feel approach. Rich media can be a part of this, providing an experience which is needed for learning in this domain. Role play and reality-based scenarios are also part of the training, ensuring competency of the staff in dealing with patients.
• This mix not only is cost effective but it is replicable. This is a necessary trait as staff in nursing and administration is prone to attrition. Training is a constant need and blended learning enables the cycle to continue on a regular basis.

CONCLUSION:

Increasing awareness and level of education in consumers is slowly driving the life sciences industry to provide value based services and also to consistently provide market level evidences of their product’s efficacy. This has the potential to change the conventional brand-centric marketing of bio-pharma products to more personalized approach while targeting consumers.

            The life sciences industry is set to tackle diverse opportunities as well as newer challenges in recent years. Along with the conventional strengths of the industry, companies will also require being more adaptive and innovative to counter regulatory and consumer demands which in turn are instigated by the technological advances in the field and global scenarios. The intricacies of the life-sciences industry are many. What stands clear is that Learning is a way of work – within all its categories. And with online education, we can make the work a lot easier.

There is going to be a big future of online education in India,

But

It definitely has a long way to go!!