The Union Ministry of Human Resource Development (MHRD) on Monday said it will use the Massive Open Online Courses platform SWAYAM to update the teaching technique of 1.5 million higher education faculty with the focus on new and emerging trends.

With the objective to enhance the quality of teaching in the country, the MHRD has identified 75 National Resource Centres (NRC) to update the curriculum of different fields of studies and provide online refresher training to teachers.

“In the first phase, 75 discipline-specific National Resource Centres have been identified which are tasked to prepare online training material with the focus on latest developments in the discipline, new and emerging trends, pedagogical improvements and methodologies for transacting revised curriculum,” the MHRD said in a statement.

A number of institutions such as Central, State and Open Universities, National Institutes for Technical Teachers Training, IITs, IIITs, NITs and other have been notified as NRCs in this regard.

“Refresher Module developed by these NRCs will include the latest trends in their earmarked discipline by June 15 each year. The training materials will be made available through SWAYAM program to all the teachers on October 1 each year and based on the response, the course can be repeated in the following January,” the statement added.

These NRCs, which are already operating in various institutions with academic work, will publish the list of the faculty who have been certified by December 31, 2018.

All in-service teachers, irrespective of their subject and seniority, will have an opportunity to be updated on the latest developments in their disciplines through the technology-based online refresher course.