<p style="text-align: justify; ">When it comes to analysing online search behaviour among Indian consumers, education may not (yet) be the topmost preference — losing out to gadgets, automobile, travel — among Google’s list of 10 most searched categories. However, the exponential growth in education related searches in the country is nothing short of extraordinary. While India was ranked 8th, globally, in terms of education related queries on Google four years ago, quantum leaps in the growth of internet traffic have catapulted the country to the number 2 spot globally when it comes to absolute volume of education search queries in 2012 ,second to the US. </p><p style="text-align: justify; "> </p><p style="text-align: justify; ">This phenomenon is congruent with the wider reality that the number of internet users in India has increased forty fold from 3 million in the year 2000 to 120 million in 2011 (which roughly translates into 10 per cent of the total Indian population), thus making India the third largest internet market in the world which is growing at 38 per cent YoY. 54 per cent of these internet users fall within the age bracket of 18-35. Given the fact that the growth rate of education queries on Google is an impressive 46 per cent (YoY), the search giant recently published a study called ‘Students on the Web,’ based on the combined data of Google’s internal research and an offline survey conducted by market research firm ,TNS Australia, on behalf of Google.</p><p style="text-align: justify; "> </p><p style="text-align: justify; ">“The need to embark on this study was triggered by the need to understand exactly what it is that students are searching for when it comes to education and how the digital medium is impacting their final decision,” explains Rajan Anandan, VP and Managing Director of Google India while adding that “with more and more users getting online every day, internet is the biggest catchment area for youth and we hope this study will help advertisers realise the potential of the digital medium.” </p><p style="text-align: justify; "> </p><p style="text-align: justify; ">Case in point, Google’s advertising revenue from educational institutes comprises a small percentage: Of the 1,500 crore spent by the private education sector in India last year, only 5 per cent was earmarked towards online advertising. Google is however optimistic that the figures will escalate to 15-20 per cent in the next 2-3 years. Gaurav Kapur, Industry Head (Emerging Business Group) at Google is confident that “advertisers can’t avoid internet as a platform” and goes on to emphasise how Google Adwords can provide the much needed nexus for “hundreds of thousands of universities/ institutes and educational forums to connect with students.”</p><p style="text-align: justify; "> </p><p style="text-align: justify; ">When it comes to searching for Private universities, Sikkilm Manipal tops the list with Amity University catching up as a distant second, followed by Nirma, Lovely professional University and Sharda University., Google search data from January to June 2012 reveals. Not surprisingly, IT and vocational and largely computer courses dominate when it comes to students’ options for higher education at 44 per cent. Bachelors, primarily engineering college enquiries stand at 40 per cent while 16 per cent students explore masters (predominantly MBA) courses online where the IITs and IIMs are the most searched respectively. </p><p style="text-align: justify; "> </p><p style="text-align: justify; ">The striking, qualitative finding of the TMS study is that 5 out of 6 people are influenced by the online medium (and the options explored) when taking the final decision about their choice of institute, which thereby testifies to the kind of credibility the online domain has achieved. Anandan believes it is the feedback mechanism —user reviews, open group discussions—that gives internet its revered status. The TMS study was administered on a respondent base of 2,229 people (within the ages of 18-35: 67 per cent of them were within the demographic of 18-24) across 7 Indian tier 1 cities: Hyderabad, Bangalore, Kolkata, Mumbai, Delhi, Pune and Ahmedabad. For 60 per cent of the population internet is their first and most important source of information when it comes to educational needs. Predictably enough, placements (at 56 per cent) remain the most decisive factor when it comes to zeroing in on a particular institute or course. Faculty comes in second as 49 per cent of the students consider it important to acquaint themselves with the academic profiles of faculty members before enrolling in an institution.</p><p style="text-align: justify; "> </p><p style="text-align: justify; ">This is connected with the greater demand for more education related video content voiced by 46 per cent of the respondents’ who feel that videos on placement trends, faculty, classroom sessions and student as well as alumni documentaries. At present there is very little multimedia content on education (in the Indian context) available online. Conspicuously through, NPTEL (National Programme on technology Enhanced Learning) a joint initiative between 7 IITs and IISc Bangalore, funded by the ministry of HRD, is the most popular educational channel on YouTube with over 1 lakh subscribers and more than 70 million views. The channel features video lectures on different streams of engineering and core sciences. </p><p style="text-align: justify; "> </p><p style="text-align: justify; ">Since 66 per cent of students use their mobile/smartphones for their education research, 7 out of 10 of them assert that is ‘essential’ for educational institutes to have a mobile site. Very few actually do. Mobile educational search activity in India is growing at an astonishing rate of 135 per cent YoY and thus there is tremendous scope for education service providers to leverage this trend by developing mobile apps, Anandan speculates. Social media is another underutilised arena within the online domain that needs to be tapped for educational purposes. </p><p style="text-align: justify; "> </p><p style="text-align: justify; ">Google plans to develop more studies on internet practices in the context of education but the focus this time would be on user behaviours in tier 2 cities and also include (search) data on public institutions. They are certain these analytics would reveal a completely different picture, soon. </p>
