Naspers moves into online education with $75 million investment

The news came yesterday that Naspers had invested a 60 million Dollar stake in Udemy. Udemy describes themselves on their About Us sections as "We're the world's online learning marketplace, where 10 million+ students are taking courses in everything from programming to yoga to photography-and much, much more. Each of our 40,000+ courses is taught by an expert instructor, and every course is available on-demand, so students can learn at their own pace, on their own time, and on any device."

And then the official press release from the company - Naspers Invests $60 Million in Udemy to Expand Global Reach. As you can see, this follows an announcement from three weeks back - Naspers Announces Investment in Brainly - Its First in Education Technology.

This is something that has been on my mind for a while now, the fact that my growing children will some day need a tertiary education. Or will they in the sense that it has existed for decades? No, for hundreds of years we go to a formal place and sit at a desk and an expert tells us how it is. I get the centre of excellence thing, if you go to one tertiary institute over another, surely that reflects better on your ability to obtain a superior job to another. These online platforms, or Mooc (massive open online course) as they are called, bring together experts from all quarters.

I keep telling a particular mum to not stress about the future and where her kids are likely to go to university, the world will be different in ten years time I tell her. And it seems that this trend is starting to gain momentum. The fact that we do things the same way in the internet era is a little strange to me. It really is. I know that the resources available to university students are more plentiful than at any other time in history, the idea that you HAVE to be in the same place doing it the same old way is a stumbling block, for me at least. The cost would be lowered dramatically and it would free up a lot more time for all concerned, allowing for maximum flexibility.

The only tools you would need would be an internet connection, and a laptop, perhaps a pair of earphones. And voila, you can go to "school". Through these two funding rounds, 15 million Dollars with Brainly and a more sizeable 60 million Dollars with Udemy, Naspers have just "dropped" 75 million Dollars, or in ZA terms, 1.168 billion Rand. For comparisons sakes, Stefanutti Stocks, the construction company, has a market capitalisation of 771 million Rand. Naspers could have bought this construction company with what looks like small change.

I like this, I really do. And whilst I think it is still very early days in terms of the acceptability of multiple courses and online learning platforms. I guess then everyone could do worse than subscribe to the Malcolm Gladwell ten thousand hours rule in the "Outliers" book. To achieve world class skills, in any field, you need ten thousand hours of practicing in the correct manner. Now if you are working an 8 hour day and only work during working days, you get to just short of 2100 hours a year. So just short of five years of practice day in and day out will make you an expert on something. Perhaps not all levels of expertise need 10 thousand hours.

I just think that this new foray represents some long dated thinking, as Naspers often do, they take that view. I like this, and although it represents such a small part of their now 1 trillion Rand market capitalisation, it signals intent to shake things up a little. For the sake of our children and their children, this is really an important moment in the history of how we learn. Time to shake things up a little.