I saw Professor Sadagopan of the International Institute of Information Technology at the Assessment Tomorrow conference in Bangalore giving a lecture today on the future of education and assessment of students in particular. I have known Sadagopan for a few years and I recall visiting the campus of his university on the day it opened. The building was modelled on Stanford in the US and sits directly across the road from the well-known Infosys campus in Bangalore.

It has often been commented on within the outsourcing community that although India has nearly three million graduates entering industry each year, perhaps only 500,000 are ready to be considered for multinational companies. That’s because of a combination of English language skills and other communication abilities, in addition to basic academic achievement – there are just a lot of graduates who are not really ready for work. Though this is a problem we also see in the UK, it’s on a far greater scale in India.

Professor Sadagopan highlighted some of the key problems faced by India, namely that faculty is leaving education for better-paid opportunities elsewhere just as more students are entering higher education. To say that the Indian education system is getting squeezed is somewhat of an understatement, but he had some interesting ideas on a resolution that doesn’t involve the normal government programmes for change.

Sadagopan suggested a much stronger link between the IT industry and  He pointed out that Indians are known across the world as teachers. From Alaska to Brazil to the UK, he said that Indians are often viewed as either teachers or IT professionals – so why not link the professions further? The education opportunities are enormous if assessment and testing using technology can move beyond just multi-choice questions and the opportunities for IT are also enormous – just look at the millions of students wanting a better way to engage in India alone.

This idea that education and assessment of students can be delivered remotely and online is one of the golden opportunities for outsourcing over the next decade or so and Professor Sadagopan has put his finger on a key point – India has such a dynamic IT industry and also millions of students. Will India become the global online education hub for the 21st century?