4 Reasons Why You're Likely to Drop out from an Online Course

Sometime last year, I worked with a team of smart staff to launch the NELOC Media Academy. As a digital skills institution, we set a target to train and equip no less than one thousand young individuals in our first year. This was going to start out with a two weeks free digital training class covering Content Development, Social Media Marketing and Blogging.

We recorded great progress and registered a good number of students to take the courses. Our lecturers at the Academy got to work and developed course materials, handbooks and videos to facilitate the trainings. By ratings at the time, we were about 92% prepared to take on anything - good enough. This was because we introduced a new level of innovation in the way our courses would run. Our strategy was coated in the fact that we really wanted to create an experience for our students, offer immeasurable value and then introduce a payment structure for subsequent classes.

Asides this, we had studied the structures and processes of other online media courses around, sieved the good from the bad and worked on the limitations to develop courses that would continually appreciate. Let me tell you a bit about the NELOC Media Academy at this point.

With the intrusion of COVID-19 in the first quarter of 2020, many students and educators took to online classes as an alternative study measure to maintain academic and career balance. According to a 2020 Research report by the NELOC Media Academy, results show that the increase in demand for online education rose by about 173% in 2020, particularly due to the pandemic. However, by projections, this number may not decrease anytime soon. This is largely due to the fact that individuals (students, teachers and parents alike), institutions and the larger society is practically coming to terms and accepting the new digital reality.

At the same time, the study also records that there has been a high number of online school dropouts as many students abandon their courses for many reasons. The survey revealed reasons ranging from the incompetence of lecturers in handling online teaching tools, inconvenient online learning platforms, huge internet data costs, network breaks, device storage or compatibility and student's emotional disposition among others.

The NELOC Media Academy Report was launched as an in-house growth publication to record the progress of the academy as well as monitor desired changes in the culture of learning media related courses. The Academy is an offshoot of the parent company NELOC Media, a digital marketing company.

Now, with all these set, you would expect that all went well. But I have bad news. Things did not scale as expected.

Although we had an excellent course structure (and we covered all holes from our end), our major problem was with people who chose to be online course drop outs. Our statistics read that about 47% of online school students are prone to dropping out. For a launch class that was totally free, we discovered that even after putting every possible measure in place to curb this, it was almost impossible to reduce the rate at which people dropped out. This is why in the next few lines, I'd talk about a few reasons why you are likely to become an online course dropout and possible things to consider if you are looking to change that narrative.

 

Indiscipline

One thing I got to understand is that the amount of value you offer in your online class doesn't really matter. And the reality is that online learning, just like schooling is not a scam after all. You decide what it is. I understand that physical classes are the real deal, but it is unwise to remain rigid to that option when there is no alternative to an online class. This is the major reason why people get indisciplined and show it towards online classes. In return, this may frustrate you as a lecturer if you do not have a proper structure and tracking process (especially for a free class).

Internet Data

Someday, I hopefully will write an article on how data is a spirit. For many people, internet data can be as frustrating and if you live in a country like Nigeria, I can only say that you are a blessed person indeed. This is because from high data costs to unstable connection, your course experience will definitely be a bad one and that way, you are likely to give up even before starting the course. In your mind, local man cannot can  and you can only just send your regards as all the best to the organisers of the online class. 

Which of these resonates with you? Are you likely to drop out of an online course based on these? Or are there other factors that could make you drop out? Kindly share your thoughts in the comments.