HRD Ministry urges students to explore UGC MOOCs; here is what you need to know about the free online education platform

Union Minister for Human Resource Development Ramesh Pokhriyal has asked students in undergraduate or post graduate courses to explore UGC MOOCs.“Did you know that UGC MOOCs, a vertical of @SWAYAMMHRD, offers a fine variety of courses at UG & PG levels? Explore the platform today and take up a course that you always wanted to! After all, what you learn today stays with you forever,” he tweeted.University Grants Commission’s MOOCs offers over 100 PG courses and over 200 UG courses.[caption id="attachment_8309311" align="alignleft" width="380"]

A screenshot of UGC MOOC's official website. Image courtesy: Uugcmoocs.inflibnet.ac.in[/caption]What is UGC MOOCs?UGC MOOC or massive open online courses is a vertical of Study Webs of Active–Learning for Young Aspiring Minds (SWAYAM). It has been designed by the Central Government "to achieve the three cardinal principles of Education Policy viz, access, equity and quality".SWAYAM platform aims to give the best teaching learning resources to all. It offers courses taught in classrooms from Class 9 till post-graduation. Anyone can access these courses anytime and anywhere. They are free of cost.The government has appointed National Coordinators — NPTEL for engineering, UGC for post-graduation education, CEC for under-graduate education, NCERT and NIOS for school education, IGNOU for out of the school students and for management studies – to provide quality content.How useful is SWAYAM?Six courses under SWAYAM have managed to cement their place among the top 30 online courses of 2019, according to Class Central, a free online course aggregator from top universities like Stanford, MIT and Harvard.The six courses are:- Academic Writing: HNB Garhwal University in Uttarakhand- Digital Marketing: Panjab University Chandigarh- Animation: Banaras Hindu University- Mathematical Economics: Doon University, Dehradun- Python for Data Science: Indian Institute of Technology Madras- Early Childhood Care and Education (ECCE): Avianshilingam Institute for Home Science and Higher Education for Women, CoimbatoreEarlier this month, Pokhriyal held a detailed review of SWAYAM and the 32 DTH television education channels SWAYAM PRABHA. He said that currently over 26 lakh students are taking 574 courses offered on the platform.