The lockdown brings a new challenge for educational institutions. The Institute of Company Secretaries of India (ICSI) at time has adopted e-learning system.

From providing revision classes through online short-term courses and free video lectures to mock tests for its students, ICSI has completely changed its distance education landscape in real-time.

Students enrolled in ICSI's Class Room Teaching Center can avail free online classes at: https://www.icsi.edu/media/webmodules/websiteClassroom.pdf. Free video lectures are available at: https://elearning.icsi.in.

All offline training such as the 15-day Educational Development Program (ADP), the 8-day Entrepreneurship Development Program (EDP) and the 15-day Management Skills Orientation Program (MSOP) have been transferred to the virtual platform.CS is conducting webinars and online certificate courses through virtual classrooms to keep the knowledge of the members updated, which is proving very helpful in professional development of company secretaries.

ICSI President CS Ashish Garg stated that this webinar is being organized by ICSI on three days every week (Monday, Wednesday and Friday) to keep the knowledge of the company secretary members updated.

In these webinars, CS is being explained in detail by experts on topics like CSR, Companies Act, Insolvency and Bankruptcy Law.CS Garg informed that for the convenience of the members, online certificate courses in various subjects have  been launched. Chief among them are Certificate Course on Women Director (Course Duration - Three Months), Certificate Course on Certified CSR (CSR) Professional - (Course Duration - Three Months), Certificate Course on Forensic Audit (Course Duration - One Month), Certificate Course on Goods and Services Tax (GST) - (Course Duration - 60 Hours) and Certificate Course on POSH Act - (Course Duration - Three Months).

ICSI has also introduced a series of online self-assessment modules for members in areas of specialization i.e. Company Law, Taxation Law, Securities Law, Governance, Risk Management, Compliance and Ethics. Members will be eligible for 10 program credit hours (PCH) for each module. Each module will conduct 60 multiple choice questions.

The Institute of Company Secretaries of India - Registered Valuers Organization (ICSI-RVO) has started a 50-hour online education course on 'Valuation of Securities or Financial Assets'.