India among top 5 revenue generators for us: Coursera

New Delhi, Nov 17: Online education firm Coursera is in talks with educational institutes and companies in the country as it looks to further expand presence in the Indian market, one of its top-five revenue generators.

Coursera, which offers courses from top global universities like Duke, Caltech, Stanford and Princeton, has recently signed its first partnership in India with the Indian School of Business (ISB).

"We are very excited about the opportunities here. India is our second largest userbase already with 800,000 students registered. It is also one of the top five countries in terms of revenue generated for Coursera," Coursera Chief Executive Officer Richard C Levin told PTI.

He added that India's relative position is likely to improve over time, given the high value Indian employers place on the potential of massive open online courses (MOOCs) for developing skills relevant for employees and prospective employees. Coursera offers free online courses across multiple disciplines for free.

However, it charges a fee for certification for the course. It offers about 800 courses from 115 universities.

"We are educating companies here on the benefits of our model and they have been very receptive. They are interested in using our model for their employees since its an alternate way of taking courses," he said.

Levin added that Coursera is in discussions with companies on how its courses can be blended and taken offline for training employees. Coursera's largest market is the US, where it has close to 4 million users. Globally, it has about 10 million people undertaking various courses through its platform.

PTI