HRD Ministry Launches SWAYAM to Impart the Best Teaching Learning Resources for Students for Free

Under the Massive Open Online Courses (MOOCs), the HRD Ministry has launched the Study Webs of Active-Learning for Young Aspiring Minds or SWAYAM, a web portal that is available for all subjects from Class 9 till post-graduation for students who are yet to be touched by the digital revolution of today and have not yet been able to join the mainstream of the knowledge economy. SWAYAM is indigenously developed by HRD Ministry with the active support of All India Council for Technical Education (AICTE).

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SWAYAM aims at to achieve three main objectives of education policy namely:

• Access
• Equity
• Quality

Under this initiative, students will be offered best teaching-learning resource materials. Courses in the SWAYAM are completely interactive, prepared by the best teachers of the country. Around 1000 teachers from different parts of the country have participated in the preparation of these courses. Most importantly, all the courses are free to Indian citizens. The platform can host 2000 courses and offers 80,000 hours of learning.

Course will be hosted on 4 platforms:

• Specially prepared reading material

• Video lecture

• An online discussion forum for clearing doubts

• Self-assessment tests

The courses will be offered through an IT platform which is indigenously developed and that which facilitates hosting of all courses.

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The Government has also given due consideration to keep the quality of the content by making use of audio-video, multi-media and state of the art technology. For that purpose government has entrusted works to seven national coordinators like:

• NPTEL for engineering
• CEC for undergraduate education
• UGC for post-graduation education
• NCERT & NIOS for school education
• IIMB for management studies.
• IGNOU for out of the school students

How will SWAYAM award Degrees?

• Students who want certifications after completion of the courses will have to register first
• At the end of a course, students will be assessed through a proctored exam
• The marks/ grades secured in this exam can be transferred to the academic record of the students

In fact, UGC has already issued the UGC Regulation 2016 advising Universities of the country to identify courses where credits can be transferred on to the academic record of the students for courses they have done on SWAYAM.

After completion of the course, successful students will be offered a certificate. For that, they have to deposit little amount of fees. After the completion of the course, students will be assessed through proctored examination.