Lok Sabha Question No. 228 (UNSTARRED), answered on 2020-09-14
Subject: Online Education
Ministry: Education
Asked by: Shriniwas Dadasaheb Patil

## GOVERNMENT OF INDIA MINISTRY OF EDUCATION DEPARTMENT OF HIGHER EDUCATION

## LOKSABHA UNSTARREDQUESTION NO.228 TO BE ANSWERED ON 14.09.2020

## Online Education

## 228.SHRI SHRINIWAS PATIL:

Will the Minister of EDUCATION be pleased to state:

- (a) Whether the Government has taken any emergency measures to facilitate and monitor the smooth conduct of online classes being conducted by various educational institutions  in view of the continuing closure of physical conduct of the schools and colleges?
- (b) if so, the details thereof;
- (c) whether the Government has undertaken any study to determine the difficulties faced by and the  extra  costs  that  have  to  be  borne  by  students  and  the  educational  institutions  in implementing the online learning systems;
- (d) if so, the findings of such studies conducted;
- (e) whether  the  Government  has  fixed  any  guidelines  regarding  the  fees  to  be  charged  by institutions for online teaching; and
- (f) whether the Government is making any efforts to provide any standardized online teaching and learning resources to students and teachers?

## ANSWER

## MINISTER OF EDUCATION (SHRI RAMESH POKHRIYAL 'NISHANK')

(a) & (b) A comprehensive initiative called PM eVidya has been initiated  which unifies  all efforts  related  to  digital/online,  on-air  education  to  enable  multi-mode  access  to  education.  This will benefit students in schools and higher educational institutions. The initiative includes: -

- (i) Higher Educational Institutions (HEIs) ranked in top 100 NIRF or NAAC score of 3.26 can  offer  online  programme  without  prior  approval  of  UGC.  Institutions  with  NAAC score of 3.01 to 3.25 can offer online programme with prior approval of UGC.
- (ii) For conventional courses, the online content has been increased from up to 20% to 40% in regular degree programmes.
- (iii) DIKSHA. a digital infrastructure for providing quality e-content for school education in states/UTs and QR coded energized textbooks for all grades.
- (iv) One TV channel has been earmarked for each class from 1 to 12
- (v) Extensive use of Radio, Community radio and CBSE Podcast-Shiksha Vani
- (vi) Special  e-content  for  visually  and  hearing  impaired  developed  on  Digitally  Accessible Information System (DAISY) and in sign language on NIOS website/YouTube.

(c)  to(e)  UGC  has  issued  a  regulation  for  online  education  which  can  be  accessed  on  https://www.ugc.ac.in/pdfnews/221580.pdf

A report  on  digital  education  has  been  prepared  namely  India  report  which  can  be  accessed  on following link: https://mhrd.gov.in/sites/upload\_files/mhrd/files/India\_Report\_Digital\_Education 0.pdf

A  guideline  on  Digital  Education  -  PRAGYATA  has  been  issued  which  can  be  accessed  on https://mhrd.gov.in/sites/upload\_files/mhrd/files/pragyata-guidelines\_0.pdf

(f)  Ministry  of  Education through the MOOCs (Massive Open Online Courses) platform, 'Study Webs of Active  Learning  for  Young  Aspiring  Minds'  (SWAYAM),  offers  online  courses  in  all disciplines.  All  the  courses  are  interactive  and  prepared  by  reputed  teachers/institutions  in  the country.  There  is  a  provision  of  Credit  Transfer  for  the  successful  completion  of  the  course  on SWAYAM portal. Till date more than 2000 courses have been developed and more than 4200 online courses have been offered. About 1.8 crore students have enrolled in these courses. For the July, 2020 semester, 656 courses have been offered on SWAYAM platform. Besides these, online resources are being provided through National Digital Library (NDL), DIKSHA,e-Pathshala, e-PG Pathshala, Virtual Labs, Free and Open Source Software (FOSSEE), Spoken Tutorials, etc.

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