Cratis Hippocrates of Open Universities Australia at a press meet on Wednesday. Picture by Kishor Roy Chowdhury

Open Universities Australia checked in to the city on Wednesday with a bouquet of online courses from top-tier and second-tier universities in the southern continent.

And unlike the treatment meted out to Team India?s Australian coach a week ago, Calcutta had a great response to offer to the contingent.

On Wednesday morning, there was an interactive session with the students at a city hotel. ?The response we have received here is double of what we have got in the other cities we have been to ? Hyderabad and Delhi,? said Cratis Hippocrates, general manager, business development of Open Universities Australia.

India is the first country where the conglomeration of universities is setting foot outside Australia. ?Cricket is a definite connect though some people here are not giving Greg Chappell a good time and vice versa,? laughed the former manager of John Fairfax Holdings, publisher of Sydney Morning Herald and The Age in Melbourne. China was the other option but ?people there say they can speak English but respond with only yes or no, while here we can have an actual conversation?. The education systems in India and Australia are also similarly aligned on a 10+2 model.

For the 2006 session, on offer are bachelor degrees in media, arts, communication, international health, business and IT. ?These areas have emerged as the areas with the biggest demand in our market research,? Hippocrates said. Though IT and business are thought of abroad as the high-demand subjects in India, he believes that it is media and communication that is set for an explosion. ?Indians are great users of the media, be it public relations, journalism or the Internet.?

The biggest USP of the course is the fact that the degrees are given directly by the university concerned, be it Griffith, RMIT, South Australia or Swinburne Institute of Technology. ?Unlike other distance education offers, there is no distinction between the degrees for the on-campus and the online courses, though the latter costs about half of the former. We are just acting as brokers between the students and the universities.?

To understand the needs of students here, Open Universities Australia will run a pilot programme whereby a team would be back in February when the courses take off. A lot of extra support will be provided to the first batch to understand their requirements and tailor the courses accordingly. ?We are running the parlour in Calcutta, Hyderabad and Delhi to ascertain the level of face-to-face contact that the students would require.?

Their Indian partner, IMS Learning Resources, will act as local points of contact.

There are four study periods through the year when one can start. The course fees (at Aus $720 per unit for graduation in arts and Aus $ 790 per unit for IT and business) are cheaper than an online degree from the UK. Students can also choose to spend time on the campus for periods of their choice.

?We have spoken to 600-700 students directly on this trip. While 72 have already signed up, we have left a gap of three months when the rest can think this over.?