Union Human Resource Development (HRD) Minister Prakash Javadekar on December 23 said that by 2018, the HRD ministry is targeting 1 crore student enrolment in Swayam programme – an indigenously developed educational platform by the government.
“By 2018 targeting 1 crore student enrolment in #SWAYAM #EducationRevolution,” Javadekar said in a series of tweets.
Saying that Swayam is the world’s largest Massive Open Online Course (MOOC) in the making, Javadekar said that so far 18 lakh students have registered themselves in less than five months in this programme.
“#SWAYAM is the world’s largest #MOOCs program in the making. 18 lakh students registrations in less than 5 months .#EducationRevolution,” he added.
“Currently over 670 courses spanning subjects such as Humanities and Science are being offered through this programme and over 1,500 new courses will be added in next three months,” the minister informed, adding, “The government plans to include 300 courses in 10 regional languages in next three months as well.”
Through this programme, the MHRD’s objective is to provide high quality e-content to all colleges and universities free of cost.
“Over 76 universities have approved credit transfer for courses taken through Swayam,” the minister said, adding, “The UGC has also issued a credit transfer framework for the same.”
The minister termed Swayam as ‘Any Time Learning, Any Where Learning and said, “Students from the poorest part of the country can get access to highest quality courses free of charge.”
Over 15 lakh untrained school teachers will receive Diploma in Elementary Education through this programme.
The MHRD also plans to offer courses of foreign universities in India languages. This move will open additional avenues for students who wish to pursue foreign courses but lack the resources and means to do so. Further, availability of higher education courses in Indian languages in limited making it difficult for non-english speaking students to pursue such courses. Swayam will allow penetration of quality courses to all corners of the country.
According to reports, Javadekar had on June 12 this year said that the government’s objective is to offer about 2,000 online courses within one year through ‘Swayam’.
About 60,000 students have already completed their courses through this affordable platform which was launched last year.
Indigenously developed by the government of India, this online platform makes knowledge available anytime anywhere and provides high-quality education on various subjects from school level (Classes 9-12) to Under Graduate and Post Graduate courses.
