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From Swayam to Diksha: Are govt learning portals enough for aspiring India?

Take a look at some of the initiatives taken by the government to strengthen the education system.

India Today Web Desk | New Delhi | April 22, 2020

From SWAYAM to Diksha portal, 5 initiatives taken by the government to strengthen India's education sector ( Image source: diksha.gov.in)

From SWAYAM to Diksha portal, 5 initiatives taken by the government to strengthen India's education sector ( Image source: diksha.gov.in)

During the yesteryears, India has taken a slew of measures to improve the quality of education. It is building relevant capacities, enhancing the pedagogical training across institutions, spearheading national and international collaborations. This is over and above introducing a more effective, comprehensive, and pertinent curriculum for students. Apparently, the nation is taking all the right steps on the education front.

So, let us have a look at some of them:

1. Institutes of Eminence (IoE):

Despite being the home to the world's second-largest population and as the fifth-largest economy, only 6 Indian institutions are ranked under 500 in 'The World University Ranking'. Further, no Indian institute emerges in the below-300 segment. In order to change this scenario, the Government of India launched IoE scheme back in 2016. It was followed by setting up of guidelines and regulation alongside a high-powered EEC (Empowered Expert Committee). The vision is to support 10 public and private institutes with superior autonomy (both administratively and academically) to boost quality teaching, research, and global ratings. To date, 16 out 20 Institutes of Eminence have been recognised by the UGC.

2. DIKSHA Portal:

The Indian Government is further empowering teachers with digital technology. In 2017, it launched DIKSHA portal to serve as a dedicated national digital infrastructure for teachers. The platform will enable teachers to create training content, in-class resources, profiles, assessment aids, and connect with other teachers more seamlessly. The DIKSHA portal can be used by both public and private institutions as per their unique goals, needs, and capabilities required for teacher training.

3. Study Webs of Active learning for Young Aspiring Minds (SWAYAM):

Launched in 2014, SWAYAM (Study Webs of Active learning for Young Aspiring Minds) envisions extending best-quality education to over 3 crore students in India. The platform has been developed by the Ministry of HRD in collaboration with IIT Madras, NPTEL, and Google. It includes various training courses by AICTE, UGC, NCERT, NPTEL, CEC, IGNOU, NIOS, NITTTR, and IIM-Bombay. All training courses are free of cost on SWAYAM. The reach of SWAYAM further gets amplified via 32 SWAYAM Prabha DTH channels, especially amongst less-digitized regions.

4. Rashtriya Aavishkar Abhiyan:

Another good initiative taken by government has been Rashtriya Aavishkar Aabhiyan. The initiative was launched back in 2015 to promote innovation excellence in science, mathematics, and technology within the age group of 6 to 18 years. It intends to achieve the overarching objectives via observation, experimentation, inference drawing, model building, rational reasoning, etc. The mission holds higher value considering the importance of these fields in our ever-growing digital infrastructure and advanced science.

5. AIIMS and IIT

Apart from Institutes of Eminence, India has simultaneously built capacity of its premier institutes like IIT and AIIMS alongside others. Since 2014, 13 new AIIMS have been announced by the government out of which, 7 have been established to date. The nation has also seen induction of 6 new IITs, increasing their overall tally to 23.

Are these measures enough?

They are surely satisfactory considering the sheer extent of the country. However, the global scenario is changing at a very rapid pace. Advanced economies have deployed modern training solutions and techniques such as smart classrooms since quite some time now and are generating positive results. This is when the quality of education continues to be a key challenge within the country. The nation has taken positive measures like Right to Education to make education more inclusive. Still such initiatives have faced challenges of their own as there is no effective measure to gauge the ability of teachers and their training, especially amongst remote regions.

Today, the nation needs to go beyond conventional measures. It needs to ensure that the technological interventions in education are fast-tracked and made more thorough. Perhaps, a good way to do it is by targeting the most critical block of this development, i.e. teachers. Advanced surveillance-driven solutions can be integrated, particularly within schools in remote regions and colleges in tier II and III cities, to achieve a higher educational quality. The government must also consider including app-based interfaces to track the progress of students.

This might further pave the way for transference of enhanced practices between Indian educational institutes. For instance, the respective teachers could enjoy takeaways from teachers at eminent institutes such as IITs, IIMs, and so on by leveraging these surveillance-based solutions. It will naturally improve their pedagogical training and hence, the quality of education.

These measures will turn out to be the next logical step in India's educational journey. It's high time we make our education system more advanced, thereby utilising our large base of youth effectively. Otherwise, it might get too late and India will be staring at a lost opportunity.

Article by Abhishek Kumar, Regional Director, Onvu Learning

Source : https://www.indiatoday.in