SWAYAM- India’s Online Education Model

To keep pace with the changing global order, India has made great strides towards making the teaching and learning process more contextual and accessible. As a result, we have witnessed widespread acceptance and a massive increase in the use of online learning resources. During the outbreak of the COVID-19 pandemic, the learning community has rapidly shifted to e-learning resources made available by the government through various platforms. The outbreak of the epidemic has led to the closure of institutions and the suspension of classrooms and laboratory activities. The current circumstances posed a serious challenge for institutions to continue academic activities. Indian Context, SWAYAM, MOOCs portal, National Digital Library, Virtual Lab applications hosted by MHRD, IRINS, e-YATRA, FOSSEE, and E-PG Pathshala provided a ready solution for learners looking to continue their teaching and learning activities ceaselessly.

Now let us discuss SWAYAM India’s Massive open online courses

 SWAYAM – abbreviation stands for “Study Webs of Active Learning for Young Aspiring Minds” and in Hindi, it means “Self”, is India’s Massive Open Online Courses (MOOC) platform launched in July 2017. This platform is a Digital India initiative to aim to provide a quality education through online mode to the citizens of India. The goal is to enable access to quality education, support lifelong learning, and increase enrollment in higher education. The current SWAYAM platform is developed by the Ministry of HRD, NPTEL, IIT Madras, with the help of GOOGLE Inc., and Persistent System Ltd. 

SWAYAM hosts all courses taught from 9th class to post-graduation. It is an umbrella platform where all the government online courses are hosted on one platform. 12 national coordinators oversee the operations of SWAYAM namely for school education – NIOS and NCERT, for Out of school education (Distance education)- IGNOU and NITTTR, for Undergraduate education – NPTEL, AICTE, CEC, IIMB, and Postgraduate education – UGC, NPTEL, AICTE, IIMB. 

Currently, the portal is hosting 500+ courses open for enrollment and 80000 hours of learning, covering school, UG, PG, engineering, law, and other professional courses

The courses or program format in SWAYAM are in 4 sections first is a video lecture, second reading material that can be download/printed third being self-assessment test through tests and quizzes and last fourth is online discussion forum for clearing the doubts. 

SWAYAM offers courses in two types- Credit and Non-Credit. Credit course is taught for at least one semester as part of a subject or curriculum and noncredit courses such as awareness programs or specific skill set training do not belong to any set curriculum. 

All the courses are available free of cost to the learners. If the student wants a certificate he or she needs to register and take a test, upon completion an online certificate will be issued. The student needs to pay a little fee for certification purposes.

There are no specific eligibility criteria for learners. Any individual belonging to any age, any qualification, belonging to any religion, or any location can avail of any course of his interest. This education portal aims to develop skills, education, and knowledge to every Indian citizen. However, to get a certificate, the learner needs to check the eligibility criteria of that particular course from the portal. The leaner must score a minimum of 40% or above with the overall online assignment score to be eligible to receive a certificate that indicates Pass. 

The best part of the SWAYAM courses is the marks or grades obtained by the learners in the exam are transferrable to their academic records. The UGC which is the apex institution for higher education in India has issued the UGC credit framework for students opting online learning courses through SWAYAM regulation 2016. This regulation recommends universities and colleges offering SWAYAM courses to identify the courses in which credits are transferrable to course learner’s academic records. AICTE has also put out notification in 2016 for subsequent adoption of these courses for credit transfer.

To part of SWAYAM online classes, students need to register through the https://swayam.gov.in/ web portal.

The step by step process for the student to register and join the SWAYAM portal is given below

1. First, need to visit https://swayam.gov.in/ website
2. Click on the “Register” button provided at the top right-hand corner of the homepage
3. A new pop up page will be opened where the students should sign up to create a login address. You can use your existing Facebook, Gmail, or Microsoft login id.
4. After sign up the learners should fill all the required detail to create the account.
5. Verification code in the email id is received then after entering the verification code click on the “Create’ button for the creation of the new account in the SWAYAM portal. 
6. After completion, you chose a course of choice and start your online learning journey. 

Below is a list of all SWAYAM courses categorized by subject. Figures in bracket are number courses offered in the portal for that particular subject. 

Humanities (61), Business (83), Programming (20), Mathematics (40), Social Sciences (75), Data Science (6), Education and Teaching (36), Computer science (36), Health and Medicine (13), Personal Development (10), Science (131), Engineering (167), Art and Design (21). 

The significance of the SWAYAM portal to the Indian education system is much cherished. India’s SWAYAM program sends a strong message of integrating online and traditional education can help developing nations overcome challenges such as enrollment ration, faculty shortages, and geographical barriers, lowering costs of education, increasing flexibility, and facilitation credit mobility. 

The present COVID-19 crisis has resulted in a shift in our education system from offline to online mode. Major universities and higher education institutions have partially or fully shifted to the online mode of teaching and are reporting considerable success in their actions. Some institutions that do not have enough manpower or financial power are simply making use of the SWAYAM portal for their course delivery. With the new education policy 2020 coming in force, a new standard in education might emerge which will possibly have a deep impact on pedagogy and assessment.  

I recently read a post that says, over a century ago, at the time of Spanish Flu when people were isolating themselves, many (mostly Americans) turned to telephone to get in touch with friends and family. The Spanish flu underscored how essential the technology of telecom was to modern society. Possibly we are at a similar inflection point in the time today.