Cloud powered services and solutions are an attractive proposition for many sectors. The education sector is no exception and is facing unprecedented challenges in delivering education to students amidst the ongoing pandemic.
The uncertainty around reopening of education institutions still looms, while regulators and administrators are constantly feeling the pressure to come up with a secure mode of imparting education. In this scenario, cloud powered solutions are proving to be a lifesaver.
Also Read: How the Cloud and Technology are Transforming Higher Education?
Cloud Adoption in Education Sector
The education sector and cloud computing are not a new combination. However, the magnitude and scale at which the cloud is now expected to play its role in education is touching new heights. Here are a few valuable insights.
- An overwhelming 82% of educational institutions employ the cloud for their email or other productivity systems.
- 52% of such institutions have deployed a cloud native Learning Management System (LMS).
- A reasonable 39% of such educational entities store their curriculum and related content over the cloud.
Also Read: Bridging the Gap to Modern Higher Education
Interestingly, these stats pertain to the pre Covid-19 era. Given the high rates of cloud adoption after the pandemic, we can safely presume these figures of cloud migration will have definitely shown much more improvement.
IaaS and Education Sector
In the Infrastructure as a Service (IaaS) model of cloud delivery, an education institution can leverage state of the art cloud infrastructure of a third party Cloud Provider (CSP) like dinCloud. This includes learning content, student records and syllabi.
By adopting the IaaS model, schools, colleges and universities won’t have to invest in on campus data centers. This would also eliminate the need for maintaining the related hardware. They will pay only for the cloud resources they actually use.
Also Read: How Cloud Computing Revolutionizing the Education Sector?
Education Sector and PaaS
By leveraging Platform as a Service (PaaS), students get the opportunity to access state of the art development tools and platforms over the cloud. These can be used to generate innovative education and corporate solutions that can be used at a mass scale.
SaaS and Education Institutions
The Software as a Service (SaaS) model gives educators real time access to the best software solutions. The scope of these cloud native software solutions extends to distance learning platforms, learning management systems (LMS) and collaboration platforms.
Also Read: 7 Leading DaaS Trends and Benefits in Higher Education
Bridging the Teacher Student Gap
The cloud can prove to be an effective gateway between teachers and students, in a time when in class or on campus learning opportunities are non existent. The cloud can enable a seamless, real time remote interaction between educators and students.
Easing School Management
By migrating the administrative functions of the education sector to the cloud, we can attain immense efficiency with minimal costs. Important data such as student records, assignments, quizzes, examinations and learning material will become cloud native.
Also Read: Latest IT Technology Trends in Higher Education
Better Future Preparedness
The ongoing pandemic is just one of the possibilities that has the potential to disrupt the whole education sector. By moving to the cloud now, educational institutions will become better equipped to tackle similar contingencies in the future as well.
Cloud as a Distance Learning Haven
The cloud and distance learning are a perfect fit. The highly flexible, available and scalable nature of cloud services make them the ideal candidate for full on distance learning. Through distance learning, education will transgress geographical boundaries.
Also Read: Cloud Adoption by Higher Education Providers Expected to Soar
Affordable Education for All
The cloud can prove to be an important milestone towards the dream of making quality education accessible to all. The cost efficiencies that education institutions realize over the cloud can trickle down to students in the form of affordable education.
Conclusion
For the education sector, the cloud is not a question of if or when. Rather, the cloud is rapidly becoming an absolute necessity for effective and secure distance learning, which is the new norm for now.
