by RICHARD SOLASHJUL, The Atlantic
Massive online courses known as MOOCs are opening up elite education opportunities for those who wouldn’t otherwise have them. It’s more than 11,000 kilometers from Shakargarh, a city in northeastern Pakistan, to the venerated halls of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, one of the top universities in the United States. Twenty-five-year-old Khalid Raza lives in Shakargarh but is taking “The Challenges of Global Poverty,” a course taught by a former adviser to the World Bank and a professor of international economics at MIT. Recently, while on the bus, he pulled out his laptop and submitted one of his first assignments. “It was an amazing experience when I was submitting my assignment,” he said. “I was traveling and my friend was sitting with me. When I submitted my assignment, after some time he asked me a question, ‘What are you doing?’ So I told him the whole story, that I am taking a course from the U.S.A. He was so surprised and shocked.”
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