It’s a Sunday afternoon and class time for 39-year-old IT worker Seema Shetty. Her feet curled under her in a swivel chair, she sits in front of a computer monitor, adjusts a set of headphones, and scribbles in a notebook. Shetty, who works for consulting firm Mastek in Mumbai, is in a virtual classroom in the Vile Parle suburb, where a dozen computers link students to some of India’s elite management institutions. Today’s class is a three-hour general management lecture, part of the online education course conducted by the Xavier Labor Relations Institute in Jamshedpur, in the remote northern Indian state of Jharkhand.

A consultant for various industries from insurance to banking, Shetty signed up for an online certificate course to “learn more about my clients’ business requirements,” she says. By enrolling in the 14-month, six-hour-per-weekend online course, at a cost of $4,600, she can further her education without having to take a two-year career break to get an MBA. Learning online, says Shetty hopefully, “will definitely boost my job prospects.”

Shetty is part of a growing tribe of working professionals and students in India who have enrolled for online education certification. While it’s difficult to determine numbers of students, the online education market in India today generates about $200 million in revenue, and industry experts expect it to touch $1 billion by the end of the decade. The winning proposition: Getting knowledge from top-notch professionals without disrupting fast-track careers.