The UGC has made it mandatory for all universities to bring amendments to their respective ordinances and rules by August 19 to facilitate transfer of credits of their students for the degree programmes to be offered under Swayam, a massive online open courses (Moocs) platform.
The higher education regulator has notified the UGC (Credit Framework for Online Learning Courses through Swayam) Regulation, 2016, recently to ensure that Swayam takes off soon after it is launched as the Human Resources Development Ministry races against time to complete all preparations for the roll out of India first Moocs platform next month. The programme, which seeks to fill the gap created by the acute shortage of quality teachers in the country’s higher educational institutions, is likely to be dedicated to the nation by Prime Minister Narendra Modi on August 15.
The Swayam will offer a virtual class room to students with structured lectures by subject experts.
“An institution can only allow up to 20% of the total courses being offered in a particular programme in a semester through the online learning courses provided through Swayam platform,” the UGC regulation stipulates.
Students, registered with the Swayam, can complete their entire programme by attending classes online and take “proctored” examinations at the end of each semester to move to the next level. For the proctored examinations, centres with adequate facilities will be opened in universities.
The credit earned by the students will be transferred to their parent university by the one conducting the programme at the Moocs platform.
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