SWAYAM portal: Offer free online courses to promote digital learning

SWAYAM portal: Offer free online courses to promote digital learning

To boost digital education in the remote areas of the country, SWAYAM portal has been launched by the President Pranab Mukherjee at the Vigyan Bhavan in New Delhi on July 9, 2017. Apart from this, President Mukherjee has also launched:

– Swayam Prabha
– National Academic Depository
– National Digital Library

All these digital initiatives are operational under Union Ministry of Human Resource and Development (HRD).

Motto: No age, no boundaries & now no more limitations to impart smart education.

Digital Education Initiatives

SWAYAM portal

The web portal offer free online courses from class 9th to post-graduation that can be accessed by anyone, anywhere at any time, which are offered by the best faculties and universities of India. This digital platform:

  1. Is indigenously designed in the Massive Open Online Course (MOOC) format.
  2. A call to the other teachers to use this material and improve their own teaching capacity.

NOTE: Download the SWAYAM portal from Google Play Store or Apple App Store.

Swayam Prabha

Swayam Prabha: A group of 32 DTH channels for education
Swayam Prabha: A group of 32 DTH channels for education

Swayam Prabha: The web portal will telecast high-quality 32 free Direct to Home (DTH) channels for education on 24×7 basis using the GSAT-15 satellite. The purpose of the portal is to help students in the rural areas and in the remote areas where IT infrastructure have not penetrated so far. Excerpts of the Swayam Prabha are:

  1. The DTH Channels shall cover School education (9-12 levels), Higher Education, Curriculum-based courses and assist students (class 11th & 12th) prepare for competitive exams.
  2. Every day, there will be new content for at least 4 hours which would be repeated 5 more times in a day, allowing the students to choose the time of their convenience. The contents are provided by NPTEL, IITs, UGC, CEC, IGNOU, NCERT and NIOS. The INFLIBNET Centre maintains the web portal.
  3. The portal will cover diverse disciplines of all levels of education in various languages.

Note: These SWAYAM Prabha channels are available for free for anyone who has a set top box to receive either DD Free Dish or DishTV.

National Academic Depository (NAD)

National Academic Depository (NAD)
National Academic Depository (NAD)

NAD: A national digital depository of academic awards will help in easy authentication of the credentials / certificates issued by the institutions. Through this system:

  1. Students can access certificate at any time and authorize employers, banks to view and verify the certificates.

Thus, the digital depository will be very useful for the purpose of employment, higher education and loans as there will be no more need to carry originals, submit attested photocopies, and wait for verification of document.

Note: The NAD is set-up by Ministry of Human Resources Development Development (HRD) and University Grants Commission (UGC) by appointing NSDL Database Management Limited (NDML) to facilitate Academic Institutions to Digitally, Securely and Quickly issue Online Academic Awards to the Students directly in their online NAD Account.

National Digital Library (NDL) of India

National Digital Library (NDL) of India
National Digital Library (NDL) of India

NDL: A large online library containing 6.5 million books.

  1. It’s a one-stop platform for information and knowledge from the best schools, institutions, teachers, scholars and domain experts of our Nation.
  2. The multi-lingual website provides free access to information in 100+ languages.
  3. Have 6000 + Registered institutions, 75 lakhs + content, 140 + content sources & 15 lakhs + users.

Megha Jain

Engg & Freelance Author

Straight forward