India has about 650 million cellular phone users, of which around 300-400 million people are smartphone users. Having one of the fastest rates of digital implementation in the world, the Indian Government has made use of this digital revolution and implemented several education-based projects.
In a press release, the Ministry of Human Resource Development outlined seven main e-learning initiatives that have made access to online educational resources easier for students and educators.
National Digital Library (NDL)
The National Digital Library is an online source of millions of academic texts from around the world, that is open to the general public. The NDL makes digital educational resources available to all Indian citizens and aims to empower, inspire and encourage learning.
It has over 17 million source materials from more than 160 sources, in over 200 languages. The NDL uses a single-window system to increase efficiency through time and cost savings. The platform collects and organises metadata from leading learning domestic and international institutions. It functions as a digital repository containing textbooks, articles, videos, audiobooks, lectures, simulations, fiction and other kinds of learning media.
E-pathshala
The National Council for Educational Research and Training (NCERT) developed the e-pathshala (e-school). It is an educational cyberspace meant to offer and disseminate e-resources in a variety of other print and non-print materials. So far, 3,444 audio files and videos, 698 e-books and 504 flipbooks are available on its portal and mobile app.
ShaGun portal
The ShaGun web portal-from the words Shaala (school) and Gunvatta (quality)- is a two-part initiative that provides a platform for the exchange of educational information.
One of the parts of the portal is a Repository. It consists of resource material, including, good practices, images, videos, studies, and newspaper articles etc. The project has been implemented throughout the country’s States and Union Territories. It aims to facilitate the sharing of ‘success stories’ and to foster a ‘positive competitive spirit’ among the students in the country by enabling them to learn from each other.
National Repository of Open Educational Resources (NROER)
The National Repository of Open Educational Resources (NROER) initiative sets out to bring together all digital and digitisable resources across every level of school and teacher education. At present, 13,635 files including collections (401), documents (2,722), audio files (1,664), images (2,581), and videos (6,105) are now available on its portal.
SWAYAM
The Study Webs of Active Learning for Young Aspiring Minds (SWAYAM) is an integrated platform for online courses. It covers courses from the school (from grades 9 to 12) to the Post Graduate (PG) level. It provides a wide variety of subjects and skill-sector courses at affordable costs to students across the country.
The National Institute of Open Schooling (NIOS)’s Massive Open Online Courses (MOOCs) are also available on the portal.
SWAYAM Prabha
The SWAYAM Prabha programme utilises satellite communication technologies to transmit educational content to national channels. Essentially, it is an around-the-clock educational television channel.
Information Communication Technology in school curricula
The Ministry has implemented the ICT in Education Curricula across the country. The project is aimed at students, teachers, and teacher educators. Now, the guidelines for cyber safety and security are a part of required learning material in schools.