Increasing professional efficacy for mid-career professionals: Problems and prospects

This is an age of learning and knowledge explosion. Professionals who were content with their basic education qualifications in the yesteryears are no more satisfied with the state of things as they are, today. The fear of getting obsolete is lingering in the minds of professionals, especially those who are in their mid-careers with a good many number of years of experience behind them. Unfortunately for them, the experiences they have seem to become redundant, in the light of the changes taking place in the industry due to the process of globalization and technological innovation. Simultaneously, the number of young professionally prepared workforce is posing a major competition to this group, as they are dynamic, talented and ambitious and hence, quickly eroding the gap of the differential the earlier generation claimed due to their experience. All this has fuelled the growth and the need for online access to professional education for mid-career professionals who are seeking help in upgrading their professional acumen. This has given rise for the need to institute alternative modes of education accessible to these professionals, where they can benefit from educating themselves without having to come to the classroom, physically. Thus, there is tremendous need now for developing a hybrid system of education based on on-line learning (e-learning) principles.