Union Minister of HRD Smirit Irani asked private educational institutions to collaborate with government in improving access, transparency and quality of higher education in India, while announcing a series of new initiatives by her ministry to help students with quality academic content and other supports to prepare for country’s premier educational institutions such as IITs.
Speaking at a National Conference ‘Reforming and Rejuvenating India’s Higher Education’ organised by the Education Promotion Society for India (EPSI) in the capital, the minister urged the private institutions to participate in government’s Unnat Bharat programme of under which premier educational institutions such as IIMs and IITs are adopting neighboring villages and rejuvenating their educational system.
“Considering the spread of mobile technology that has reached even the hitherto unexplored areas of the country, we would be launching Bharat Vani App that would provide the students with higher education study material in 22 different languages. However, within next year, we would provide access to the same content in 100 non-scheduled and tribal languages, for greater reach and accessibility. We are also coming up with innovative mobile app and portal, IIT Pal, that would provide the engineering aspirants with IIT question papers of last 50 years to all the students across the country. The portal and app would also have video lectures by top notch faculty and audio aid in 13 different languages,” she said.
She also urged the organisation to help in identifying elements which are compromising with students’ interest for the sake of commercial benefits, thus, bringing disrepute to the entire sector.
“When we talk about stakeholders, it is important to see which of all stakeholders get predominance. For me, I believe, it is the students who are the main stakeholders and every policy and reform should revolve in the interest of the students. Currently, Indian higher education is facing many ripples. However, I feel looking at an issue as a challenge brings negative connotation, but viewing at it as an opportunity will bring new perspective and inspiration. We need to leverage technology to benefit the education sector,” added the minister.
Further, asking for participation of private institutions she talked about expansion of the MOOC (massive open online course) platform named SWAYAM that has 500 courses to begin with. “SWAYAM would be a unique and first platform in the country to give proper credits and disseminate the knowledge across a wide cross section,” she suggested keeping in mind the high dropout rates from eighth standard onwards.
On the occasion, the minister also unveiled a new education portal www.studyinindia.org, put together by the Education Promotion Society for India with an aim to be a single platform to bind all education providers from India, and help seekers avail most authentic and complete information on education.