Tashkent, Uzbekistan (UzDaily.com) -- With the development of information and communication technologies, online education has become more technologically, economically and operationally feasible. The rapid transition to distance learning due to the COVID-19 pandemic has led to an increase in demand for online education services.

About 22% of masters in the US study online, compared to 11% of bachelor’s students. Online education revenue is projected to reach US$74.80 billion in 2023. The majority of academic managers (75%) admit that learning outcomes from online courses are the same or better than those from in-class courses.

The e-learning market share in the UK will grow by US$11.57 billion from 2021 to 2026. The proliferation of micro-learning, in which all course topics are broken down into smaller parts consisting of video, audio, text or infographics, is one of the key trends in the e-learning market in the UK, driving the growth of the market.

Today, there are certain online platforms like Coursera and edX that provide online courses in partnership with over 200 of the world’s leading universities and companies. These online platforms make it possible to obtain master’s and bachelor’s degrees while being located in the city of residence. Also, students of these platforms have the opportunity to follow the same curriculum as students on campus.

After quarantine measures, online learning quickly began to improve in Uzbekistan. In October last year, the Cabinet of Ministers of Uzbekistan approved the regulation on the introduction of distance learning in universities. Starting from the 2023/2024 academic year, public and private higher education institutions are allowed to train personnel in distance learning. It is worth noting that in October 2022, a memorandum of cooperation was signed between Coursera and Uzbekistan in the field of IT education. The platform will allocate around 1.2 million free coding courses that will be available from 2023.

E-learning is an effective way to:

- increasing the participation of women in the labor market (73.1% of men participate in the labor market, while this figure is 39.9% for women). Also, families invest less in the education of girls than boys. According to the World Bank, the share of men with a bachelor’s degree in the population over 25 years old is 20.8%, and for women this figure is 13.3%.

-providing broad access to higher education for people with disabilities

-increasing the level of enrollment in higher education in the country.

Recommendations:

-Establishing an efficient and well-maintained campus network, efficient server support, online student registration, billing and payment system, online bookstore services and online library services.

- introduction of a hybrid form of education, which is a mixture of traditional and distance learning. Lectures can be held online, as they do not require interaction and active participation from students, while seminars can be held in a traditional form of teaching.

- granting benefits to women when entering distance education.

- conducting secondary or additional subjects online, and the main ones in the traditional form of education.