The Institute of Distance Education of the University of Madras will soon start offering online programmes – for certificate, diploma and degree courses. This is in line with the vision of the soon-to-be implemented National Education Policy. University Vice Chancellor S. Gowri and Consortium for Educational Communication’s (CEC) director Jagat Bhushan Nadda signed a pact for the same on Monday.
CEC, established in 1993, is an autonomous inter-university centre of the University Grants Commission. CEC has been involved in developing online programmes and has over 500 courses in 74 subjects. The Consortium is trying to expand its repository by signing up with universities to create more courses.
Mr. Gowri, who had produced seven online courses as director of Educational Multimodal Research Centre at Anna University, said the courses had the highest number of registrations. Madras University proposes to initially start with available courses and then expand the course base. “We will ask our subject experts to enrich and equip our IDE,” he explained.
Online programmes would be interactive with the participation of students and teachers during the class.
Mr. Nadda said with the Union government aiming to double the gross enrolment ratio in the country to 50%, online programmes were the best choice. The diversity of the country’s population also was conducive to the development of online programmes as universities cannot cater to a large population, he said.
Under the agreement, Madras University can also translate the existing courses to suit regional requirements, he said. “We have a lot of courses and can pitch with the government to launch the first virtual university,” Mr. Nadda said.
CEC has prepared content in 74 subjects, over 6,000 videos and 24,000 e-modules.
The hitch with online content preparation is finding the right subject experts, who not only have the expertise but are not camera shy either.
H. Devaraj, former Vice Chairman of the UGC, cautioned against diluting the quality of the programmes in the name of expansion.
