The digital initiatives of the Ministry provide learning materials for school students till class 12, and also for higher-ed students
The Ministry of Human Resource Development (MHRD), in an official release, has asked all students to utilise the available resources and continue their studies through e-learning, during the time that educational institutions are closed as a precaution against COVID-19. Union Minister for Human Resource Development, Shri Ramesh Pokhriyal has urged all educational institutions to promote digital learning and make the students aware of the e-learning resources provided by the HRD Ministry.
In a statement released earlier, the Ministry listed the various digital initiatives for school students through which they can pursue online learning amidst the shutdown. The platforms listed provide learning materials for classes 1 to 12 and for higher education, including undergraduate and post graduate programmes in all branches.
Diksha, National Repository of Open Education (NROER) and e-Pathashala are portals that contain e-books, audio and video materials for the students. Diksha has more than 80,000 e-books for students till class 12 and the content has been created according to CBSE, NCERT and state/union territory guidelines. E-Pathshala is a web portal by NCERT that includes 1886 audios, 2000 videos, 696 e-books and 504 flip books for all 12 standards. With over 14,000 files including documents, interactive content and audio/video material, NROER, which is also a web-based portal launched in 2013, is a rich source of content.
Both Diksha and e-pathshala portals are available as mobile applications and all three contain multi-lingual content.
The MHRD has also listed two additional portals which provide learning for standards nine to twelve as well as higher education both. The first one, SWAYAM, short for Study Webs of Active Learning for Young Aspiring Minds, is a national online portal hosting around 1900 courses. It comprises courses in engineering, humanities, social sciences, law and management. It enables professors and faculty members of centrally-funded institutions, such as the IITs, IIMs and other central universities to offer online courses. Previously offered only to the citizens of India, now these courses are available to anyone with an internet connection. All courses listed under it are free of charge, however, a learner fee is levied if the individual requires a certificate.
The second portal is SWAYAM PRABHA, which is a group of 32 DTH channels devoted to telecasting educational content on 24/7 basis. Every day, there is new content available for at least four hours and is repeated five times within the day. The channels are available for viewing across the country and all one needs is DD free Dish set top box and antenna. The contents are provided by NPTEL, IITs, UGC, CEC, IGNOU, NCERT and NIOS and cover both school education (classes IX till XII) and higher education (UG, PG, engineering, out of school children, vocational courses and teacher training) in humanities, science, commerce, performing arts, technology, law, medicine and agriculture.
For all the above portals the access and login are facilitated free of cost. In addition, students have the option to take up at-home projects under as ‘Ek Bharat Shreshth Bharat’ and ‘Swach Bharat Abhiyan’ among others.
