The University Grants Commission (UGC) has now joined hands with the Ministry of Information and Technology (MeitY) to launch an e-resources portal that will provide access to digital courses to students in rural areas.
In a notification released by the UGC, it stated, “To mark two years of the National Education Policy (NEP) 2020 and to facilitate last mile accessibility (ensuring that no learner is left behind), the UGC has integrated its "UGC e-resources Portal (http://ugceresources.in/)" with Common Service Centres (CSCs)/Special Purpose Vehicle (SpV) of the Ministry of Electronics and lnformation Technology (MeitY) in rural India.”
The portal will have 25 Study Webs of Active-Learning for Young Aspiring Minds (SWAYAM) Postgraduate Non-Engineering Massive Open Online Courses (MOOCs) in eight Indian languages (Hindi, Gujarati, Marathi, Bangla, Telugu, Kannada, Malayalam, Tamil). Additionally, it will also have e-PG Pathshala e-content that is developed in 67 PG subjects and 135 PG and 243 UG SWAYAM MOOCs in emerging areas.
“Through the 2.5 lakh CSCs and SPVs of MeitY centres in Gram Panchayats and five lakh plus CSCs and SPVs centres across the nation, digital access and e-governance services are made available to the citizens at their doorstep, especially those who are living in rural India” the UGC notice further stated.
The aim of these courses is to address language barriers and promote Indian languages while also providing flexibility of learning in mother tongue to the learners, the notice stated. “Anyone desirous of learning can access and benefit from these Open Educational Resources (OER). Also, universities may utilise these OER for flipped classroom learning and blended mode of learning,” it added.
To access these services, a user has to pay a charge of Rs 20 per day or Rs 500 per month, the notice stated.
