What is SWAYAM

SWAYAM is a programme initiated by Government of India and designed to achieve the three cardinal principles of Education Policy viz., access, equity and quality. The objective of this effort is to take the best teaching learning resources to all, including the most disadvantaged. SWAYAM seeks to bridge the digital divide for students who have hitherto remained untouched by the digital revolution and have not been able to join the mainstream of the knowledge economy.

This is done through a platform that facilitates hosting of all the courses, taught in classrooms from Class 9 till post-graduation to be accessed by anyone, anywhere at any time. All the courses are interactive, prepared by the best teachers in the country and are available, free of cost to any learner. More than 1,000 specially chosen faculty and teachers from across the country have participated in preparing these courses.

The courses hosted on SWAYAM are in 4 quadrants – (1) video lecture, (2) specially prepared reading material that can be downloaded/printed (3) self-assessment tests through tests and quizzes and (4) an online discussion forum for clearing the doubts. Steps have been taken to enrich the learning experience by using audio-video and multi-media and state of the art pedagogy / technology.

In order to ensure that best quality content is produced and delivered, nine National Coordinators have been appointed. They are:

AICTE (All India Council for Technical Education) for self-paced and international courses

NPTEL (National Programme on Technology Enhanced Learning) for Engineering

UGC (University Grants Commission) for non technical post-graduation education

CEC (Consortium for Educational Communication) for under-graduate education

NCERT (National Council of Educational Research and Training) for school education

NIOS (National Institute of Open Schooling) for school education

IGNOU (Indira Gandhi National Open University) for out-of-school students

IIMB (Indian Institute of Management, Bangalore) for management studies

NITTTR (National Institute of Technical Teachers Training and Research) for Teacher Training programme

Courses delivered through SWAYAM are available free of cost to the learners, however learners wanting a SWAYAM certificate should register for the final proctored exams that come at a fee and attend in-person at designated centres on specified dates. Eligibility for the certificate will be announced on the course page and learners will get certificates only if this criteria is matched. Universities/colleges approving credit transfer for these courses can use the marks/certificate obtained in these courses for the same.

School

Education

NIOS

NCERT

Out-of-School

Education

IGNOU

NITTTR

Under-Graduate

Education

NPTEL

AICTE

CEC

IIMB

Post-Graduate

Education

NPTEL

AICTE

IIMB

UGC

Credit Transfer

UGC has already issued the UGC (Credit Framework for online learning courses through SWAYAM) Regulation 2016 advising the Universities to identify courses where credits can be transferred on to the academic record of the students for courses done on SWAYAM. AICTE has also put out gazette notification in 2016 and subsequently for adoption of these courses for credit transfer.

The current SWAYAM platform is developed by Ministry of Education and NPTEL, IIT Madras with the help of Google Inc. and Persistent Systems Ltd.