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President Pranab Mukherjee launched Swayam and Swayam Prabha at the National Convention on Digital Initiatives organized by Ministry of Human Resource Development, Government of India. Mukherjee also launched a National Academic Depository where verified educational records will be digitally stored by universities and boards to counter forgery.
Under Swayam, courses will be offered through digital classrooms with online study material available free of cost. Students who want certification will have to registerand they will be offered a certificate on the completion of the course for a nominal fee, the Swayam website said.
Mukherjee said that he had always emphasised on quality of teaching and learning process in higher educational institutions.
He said, "Mere physical expansion might provide access but without physical infrastructure and quality teachers, the talent which is hidden in young minds would not get the opportunity to blossom."
He further said, "Swayam should be a call to the pioneers amongst teachers to put new courses in the upcoming areas on this platform in the MOOCs format. It is also a call to the other teachers to use this material and improve their own teaching capacity. Ultimately, it should lead to better attainment levels in the students."
The President said, "The use of satellite technology to reach the unreached is time-tested. He was happy to note that the scale and reach of this technology has been raised manifold through the 32 Swayam Prabha DTH channels. These channels will help students in the rural areas and in the remote areas where IT infrastructure have not penetrated so well. "
Mukharjee said that there were differences in the quality of education in urban and rural areas, between states and in educational institutions within a state.
Underlining the need for making quality study material available in regional languages, he said students found it difficult when study materials were in an alien language.
He added, "The National Academic Depository would help in easy authentication of the credentials issued by the institutions. This would also help in increasing transparency and ease of operation. The several other digital initiatives taken up under the National Mission on Education through ICT (NMEICT) being showcased today should help all in going the digital way in order to improve the quality of teaching."
