Online faculty development courses on anvil

The Centre will start online professional development programmes for faculty of higher education institutions across all disciplines.

The courses would be offered at "Swayam" — a platform created by the central government to primarily run open and online courses for school and college students.

At the outset, the Human Resources Development Ministry has roped in 75 higher education institutions, including Indian Institute of Science, Bengaluru, Indian Institute of Information Technology (IIIT), Dharwad and Karnatak University, Pavati Nagar, Dharwad, to develop online training material for university and college teachers. Focus will be on latest developments in the target discipline, new and emerging trends, pedagogical improvements and methodologies for transacting revised curriculum.

The ministry notified the list of institutions on Friday, designating them as National Resource Centres (NRCs).

“Under this initiative, all in-service teachers, irrespective of their subject and seniority, will have an enabling opportunity to keep abreast of the latest developments in their disciplines through the technology based online refresher courses,” a ministry official said.

The courses offered will be “highly flexible” to enable faculty to complete the programme at their “own pace and time,” he added.

The move is aimed at improving the quality of higher education through professional development of the teachers.

Leveraging ICT

“The NRCs will revolutionise professional development of faculty by catering to massive numbers by leveraging ICT (information communication technology) and online technology platform of Swayam,” the ministry official said.

Each of the 75 institutes, which include several Indian Institutes of Technology (IITs), Indian Institutes of Science Education and Research (IISERs), among others, have been assigned one specific discipline to prepare online professional development courses.

The IISc will prepare course content for Physics teachers, while the IIIT will design the course content for Information Technology (IT) and Karnatak University for Sociology faculty.