The students studying in various universities and affiliated institutions across India will be allowed to take up online courses in select subjects from the next academic year. Through this system, the credits earned by the candidates will be transferred to their college mark sheets.
Also read:- SWAYAM MOOCs Platform to be Launched on August 15
The UGC uploaded the list of online courses offered by various universities across the country on its official website. The UGC has directed all the central universities to launch the online courses under Study Web of Active Learning by Young and Aspiring Minds (SWAYAM) platform. It is an ambitious initiative of government which facilitates web-based learning to youth.
Also read:- UGC Updates Online Course Norms
The guidelines for the online courses were issued by UGC on 19-July-2016. These guidelines have been approved by UGC recently. According to the sources, the project will be launched on August 15. Around 2,000 online courses will be offered to 3 crore learners under SWAYAM project.
According to the guidelines, no university shall deny the credit mobility to the students who are opting for online courses. The parent institutions must provide equivalent credit weightage to students who earned credits through online learning courses in the credit plan of the programme. Each and every institution is entitled to offer only 20% of seats in a particular programme per semester in online mode.
A senior official of the HRD Department said that the government wants to widen the scope of higher education and bringing down the costs through technical advances. He also mentioned that the students from rural areas now have a chance to access teaching facilities of renowned institutes through online courses. The standard of the education will be developed in an effective manner through this initiative. Microsoft has been given responsibility to create IT platform for online courses.