New Delhi: Ninety-three percent of students access the Internet everyday and 73% of students use the mobile phone to access the Internet, according to a Student Online Behaviour Report by HT Digital and IMRB.
The sample size of the survey was 1,402 respondents from seven cities including Delhi, Lucknow, Kolkata, Mumbai, Pune, Bengaluru and Chennai. The students were in the age group of 17 and 24 and had either completed or were pursuing their 12th year exams.
The research was presented at the DigiWise Summit in the national capital.
Addressing the audience at the summit, Rajan Anandan, managing director, Google India said, “India will reach a capacity of 300 million Internet users by the end of 2014. This usage is primarily through mobile phones as 65% of Internet usage is through mobile phones.”
With these many number of Internet users in the country, the study shows that it is also becoming a credible source for researching for education-related information. Fifty-three percent of students consider the Internet as a trustworthy source.
Research shows that 91% of students in India access the Internet for collecting information about colleges and courses with placements, availability of course, location and budget being the most important factors.
India is not far off from America where 96% of the students use the Internet to search for educational content.
“The biggest complaint in America is the enormous cost of education in the country. There is considerable competition from institutions that are for profit and community colleges,” said digital marketing and strategy expert Lee Kantz, who was giving a global perspective to education.
The research further shows that even if students learn about education institutions from other sources, 71% come back to the Internet after learning about the institution and 46% of the students had first heard of their eventual institution on the Internet.
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