Cambridge College to Launch e-Learning in India

By Joy Mazzola, India New England

2/1/07

CAMBRIDGE, Mass. — Cambridge College’s name might indicate to some that it is a local institution. Not so — the college has satellite schools as far away as Ontario and San Juan. And now they plan to expand even farther.

“India has great potential to be the next superpower in the world,” said Nishikant Sonwalkar, vice president of the Center for Adaptive Learning and Programs at Cambridge College. Sonwalkar and college president, Mahesh Sharma, are currently in the process of opening a school in Mumbai. The two have made a number of trips to India to lay the groundwork for the project. The idea is to provide the opportunity for higher education to the workforce there, plying them with the skills needed to join the ever-growing international business world.

Starting an educational center in Mumbai fits very well with the vision and mission of Cambridge College,” said Sonwalkar. That mission is to “to provide academically excellent, time-efficient and cost-effective higher education for a diverse population of working adults for whom those opportunities may have been limited or denied.” Being from India themselves, Sonwalkar and Sharma know how great the need is in that country.

“Currently, there are 300 universities and 17,000 colleges in India, and yet there are over 40 million students who do not have access to higher education,” said Sonwalkar.

Working with the Association of Indian Universities, Sonwalkar and Sharma are currently in the process of establishing the Mumbai educational center. They will start by opening a graduate degree program in management and are now awaiting regulatory permissions before getting it off the ground. “We expect to start with our first cohort of 30 students at the Mumbai location by the summer of 2007,” said Sonwalkar. They hope to increase the number of students to 200 within one year.

The courses the college will offer in India are designed to have maximum impact on the country’s workforce and the potential therein. “In India, large numbers of the IT workforce are well trained in software and hardware practices,” said Sonwalkar, “What India lacks are good management practices.”

Almost as important as training students in management skills, Sonwalkar said, “is to provide education and training in leadership, entrepreneurship, and international trade and practices.” After the management programs (offered in both business and health care) are up and running, course offerings will expand to programs in education in instructional technology, the focus being on executive education programs for corporations. They also plan to offer courses in English as a second language, and digital literacy programs.

The method by which students will earn their degrees is an adaptive blended learning model. The system was developed by Sonwalkar, who researched it at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, where he had been the principal Educational architect. Termed AdaptNet, the model combines both online and classroom instruction, and is designed to teach students according to the way they learn best. “The model allows students to learn and develop an understanding about the subject matter using different learning styles,” Sonwalkar explains. “The artificial intelligence technology built into the program identifies which learning model is best for learner and adapts to his or her learning style.”

Sonwalkar initially developed the model by converting Cambridge College’s master’s program in management into the AdaptNet system and trying it out at three of the college’s locations. The rate of success, or degree completion, for the program was more than 90 percent. Though AdaptNet was developed and tested in the United States, it will be implemented in India “with the appropriate localization of the content and case studies,” according to Sonwalkar.

Sonwalkar also founded the Center for Adaptive Learning and Programs at Cambridge College. The goal of the Center is to implement AdaptNet programs in both India and China. The potential for the program to provide higher education in these two countries, as well as in the United States, according to Sonwalkar, “is enormous.”

Among the hundreds of universities and colleges in India, few are foreign, and of these, very few are U.S. institutions. Most of Cambridge College’s competition in India right now comes from Australian and British universities who, Sonwalkar said, “are actively recruiting students.” For students wishing to come to the United States for an education, however, the options are still extremely limited. “A large number of bright Indian students cannot afford the cost of coming to the United States, and many of them are denied student visas for numerous reasons,” said Sonwalkar. “Such deserving students now will be able to pursue a degree while in India, delivered by Cambridge College.”

Sonwalkar himself developed several educational technologies in his former role as the director of hypermedia teaching facility and principal educational architect at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. He has contributed and worked with MIT’s key online learning initiatives, such as the Singapore-MIT Alliance, and Open Knowledge Initiative.

He is also the co-author of MIT’s first interactive compact disc titled, “Fluid Mechanics Hypercourse” and author of highly acclaimed book on online education titled, “Changing the Interface of Education with Revolutionary Learning Technology.”

As the business world continues to grow on a planet that is getting smaller, connected as it is by technology, it is hoped that the combination of Sonwalkar's skills and Sharma’s vision will allow those in India a better chance to claim their piece of the pie, as well as improve the country’s standing in the global market. “With Cambridge College bringing U.S. education to India, it will have major impact on the rapid globalization of Indian businesses,” said Sonwalkar. “There will be more opportunity for bidirectional educational exchange, economic exchange and exchange of workforce.”

There are also future plans to open a school in Delhi, and eventually an entire campus in India.