-By Sreekumar Sreedharan, SVP and Service Offering Head, Oracle Practice, Infosys
India’s higher education system is the world’s second largest, with 58,000+ institutions and 43.3 million enrolled students. But much needs to be fixed, including lack of access and affordability, not to mention the poor quality of education that is leading to more than half of the country’s graduates being unemployable. Educational institutions also have several practical challenges, from inadequate infrastructure and faculty shortages to weak governance and insufficient industry connect.
On the bright side, India’s higher education sector can now resolve most of these problems with cloud computing. Take accessibility, for instance. At present, the gross enrolment ratio (GER) in higher education is just 28.4 per cent, owing to several factors including low income, lack of awareness, sociocultural barriers, and poor educational infrastructure in rural and remote areas. These problems can be partly addressed by hosting course material on a cloud platform, so it can be accessed by students anywhere using an internet or mobile connection, at their convenience.
What’s more, cloud-based school management software connects students with each other and with faculty members so they can collaborate on assignments, resolve doubts, take feedback, etc. Students in under-served locations can benefit from high quality programs hosted on cloud. A single professor working in a virtual classroom can teach a larger number of students, and even work flexible hours, to reduce the gap between faculty supply and demand. When implemented and scaled correctly, cloud-based education systems can not only streamline educational processes and costs but also improve student outcomes:
Cloud platforms integrate disparate academic and administrative systems, and break down data silos to provide visibility across operations, unlock actionable insights and enable informed decisions. Educational institutions can store and manage huge quantities of data in text, audio and video formats, and access advanced tools to curate and stream content to create engaging learning experiences. They can also analyse data to make predictions, identify improvement areas, evaluate student performance and personalise learning to individual requirements.
Leveraging AI-powered solutions on cloud, universities can automate processes across the student lifecycle – registration, application review, admissions, financial aid processing, communication, course scheduling, grading, reporting, managing alumni relations, fundraising – and even faculty hiring and onboarding to improve speed, reduce errors, save costs and enhance student satisfaction. It is reported that AI-enabled education helps three out of four students understand course content better and two in three to study more efficiently.
Cloud-based school management software solutions are updated automatically by their providers, ensuring user institutions always have the latest features. Other benefits include scalability, allowing institutions to support growing student numbers with ease; robust data protection thanks to built-in encryption and compliance with data regulations; and redundancy, boosting resilience as well as disaster recovery. Last but not least, universities save the cost of on-premise servers and IT maintenance.
While not quite “campus vibe”, the atmosphere on a cloud platform can make for an enjoyable student experience. Students can bond and collaborate in much larger numbers across geographies using tools such as Microsoft Teams and Google Docs; they can access not only course material and support services at any time, but also virtual computer labs, smart assistants, and AR/VR tools providing immersive learning experiences.
In addition to enhancing student experiences with cloud systems, educational institutions can use their data insights to customise courses and provide the right support to every student.
The global cloud computing in education market was valued at $46.3 billion in 2024, with higher education taking a 65 percent share. There is a compelling case for Indian colleges and universities to adopt cloud-based systems. However, they should go about it the right way by prioritising needs, selecting cloud providers based on important criteria (integration capability, platform security, regulatory compliance, ongoing support), planning a progressive implementation, and working with a trusted migration partner.