(Photo: Amanda Mills, Creative Commons)
Mumbai University in India is making plans to create a digital platform that will allow for new long-distance online courses to be set up on a number of mainstream topics, including social sciences, natural sciences, and music.
The University plans to create 40 virtual classrooms throughout its campuses. The classrooms will operate under the virtual education network (VSAT), which will offer lectures through satellite-based broadcasting.
In the meantime, Vice Chancellor Dr. Sanjay Deshmukh has promised that all students graduating in 2016 will receive digital certificates. He said that digital access to grades from previous years has already been placed on the website for students.
All of this comes despite the unclear future over the contract the school has held with MKCL, its digital partner, who is transferring digital data for all of the students attending the University.
The University’s push to increase virtual offerings comes after the school made headlines because of its aging infrastructure. Deshmukh has said that all necessary steps have been taken to allow for the infrastructure to be updated in addition to the implementation of a new one, reports Peter Nathanael for PrepSure.
Online education in India is growing rapidly. ProjectHindi continues to offer access to classes and courses in the country’s most popular language. The online e-learning portal offers free education in Hindi in an effort to increase the skills of the Indian workforce. The portal is completely free of cost and self-paced, and users can view the information on any capable electronic device and have access to instructors who are readily available to answer any questions.
“My passion for disseminating free and accessible education to anyone interested in India knows no boundaries,” said Prateek Singh, Creator and Founder of ProjectHindi. “ProjectHindi is the first free platform of its nature, solely dedicated to providing education and coursework on employability skills in demand in India. It’s my goal to close the loophole between vacant jobs, and hard-working individuals without the skillsets necessary to excel.”
Currently, courses are available on a number of topics including Javascript, XML, Microsoft Excel, HTML, CSS, job interviews, and numerology, among others. Learning friendly lessons are broken down into bit parts which the creators believe to be conducive to absorbing the information.
Singh said that although many jobs are available in the country, the learning gap continues to widen as the practical skills necessary to succeed in today’s world are increasingly unavailable in Hindi. ProjectHindi hopes to close this gap and make India more marketable.
Former Prime Minister Manmohan Singh noted that one of the largest hurdles currently facing the country is the unemployment of educated youth, despite the fact that they are living in one of the fastest growing economies in the world.
“Despite new industries coming up with new opportunities every day, a large segment of our youth is deprived of secure job opportunities according to their qualifications,” said Singh, hinted at jobless economic growth in the country.
He went on to discuss the importance of online education, non-classroom teaching, and affordable education, adding that all of this is possible today as a result of technological advancements that were not around 20 years ago.
