India gears up to train teachers with unique platform SWAYAM: Training made easy ‘digitally’

NewsBharati    05-May-2018
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New Delhi, May 5: In a major step, India gushes up to train around 1.5 million higher education faculties using the Massive Online Open Courses (MOOCs) platform SWAYAM. The Ministry of Human Resource Development has launched a major and unique initiative of online professional development through SWAYAM.

In the first phase, 75 discipline-specific National Resource Centres (NRC) have been identified which are tasked to prepare online training material with a focus on latest developments in the discipline, new & emerging trends, academic improvements and methodologies for transacting revised curriculum. The NRCs will develop the Refresher Module which will include the latest trends in their earmarked discipline by 15th June each year.

Under this initiative, all in-service teachers, irrespective of their subject and seniority will have an enabling opportunity to keep abreast of the latest developments in their disciplines through the technology-based online refresher course.

A varied set of institutions such as, Centres under the Ministry’s Pandit Madan Mohan Malaviya National Mission on Teachers and Teaching (PMMMNMTT) located in Central Universities, IISc, IUCAA, IITs, IISERs, NITs, State Universities ; UGC’s Human Resource Development Centres( HRDCs), National Institutes for Technical Teachers Training (NITTTRs), IIITs, Open Universities have been notified as NRCs.

These NRCs cover wide-ranging disciplines of Social Sciences, Sciences, Engineering and Technology, Design & Manufacturing, Humanities, Language Teaching, Commerce, Management, Education Planning and Administration, Public Policy, Leadership & Governance, Library & Information Science, Astronomy & Astrophysics, Assessment and Evaluation, Pedagogy and research methods, cutting-edge areas of Nano-sciences, Internet of Things, etc.

The training materials will be uploaded and made available through SWAYAM to all the teachers w.e.f. 1st October each year and based on the response, the course can be repeated in the following January. NRC will publish the list of the faculty who has been certified by 31st December, 2018. UGC will issue order/regulations for the purpose of Career Progression and APIs.

Faculty can benefit from this initiative as it is highly flexible and can be done at one’s own pace and time. The NRCs will revolutionize the professional development of faculty by catering to massive numbers by leveraging Information and communication Technology and online technology platform of SWAYAM.