New Delhi, April 10: Though all the schools and colleges are shut, given the lockdown due to the coronavirus pandemic, the Human Resource Development Ministry has provided access to e-learning platforms which has recorded an amount of upsurge during the last two weeks. 

 

 

The HRD Ministry putting all the efforts to alleviate the effects of the lockdown. HRD Minister Ramesh Pokhriyal Nishank has been in regular touch with heads of institutions through video conferencing, giving necessary guidance and directions, and receiving feedback in this regard. About 50-65 percent of students in HE institutions like Central Universities, IITs, IIITs, NITs, IISERs are participating in some form of e-learning.

The schools and higher education institutions have chosen to attempt different modes of online classes to share study material depending on the resources available with them as well as with the students. These range from structured online classes through platforms like Skype, Zoom, Google Classroom, Google Hangout, Piazza to teachers uploading lectures and class notes through YouTube, WhatsApp, sharing links of digital learning resources like SWAYAM, NPTEL, providing access to online journals.

 

 

However, the lack of internet connectivity and other required digital infrastructure with students is an obstacle to e-learning in many cases. On the other hand, the teachers, to overcome this problem, are sharing slides or handwritten notes apart from recorded lectures and live sessions. In this case, recorded lectures will make sure that the students will not miss out on any important topics. The faculty members are doing online chat sessions with students to answer any queries that they may have.

 

The Education portals of NCERT like DIKSHA, e-pathshala, National Repository of Open Educational Resources, Senior Secondary Courses of NIOS, NPTEL, NEAT, AICTE Student-College helpline webportal, AICTE Training and Learning(ATAL), IGNOU Courses, UGC MOOCS courses, Shodhganga, ShodhShuddhi, VIDWAN, e-PG Pathshala, and the other ICT initiatives like Robotics education (e-Yantra), Open Source Software for Education (FOSSEE), Virtual experiments (Virtual Labs) and Learning programming (Spoken tutorial) are also experiencing very large access rates.

 

Union Minister said, the Ministry is also promoting learning through the television for those who are having internet issues. He further added, the SWAYAM PRABHA group of 32 DTH channels is devoted to telecasting of high-quality educational programmes on 24X7 basis using the GSAT-15 satellite and the contents are provided by NPTEL, IITs, UGC, CEC, IGNOU, NCERT and NIOS. Similarly, IGNOU’s Gyan Vani (105.6 FM Radio) and GyanDarshan, which is a 24-hour educational channel offering the best educational programmes for pre-school, primary, secondary and higher secondary students, college/university students, youth seeking career opportunities, homemakers and working professionals. The Minister urged students to also make optimum use of these channels to supplement their learning.