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Tuesday, September 29, 2020

Economic and Political Weekly: Table of Contents

 

Vol. 55, Issue No. 38, 19 Sep, 2020

Top Government E-learning Platform For Students

 

Government Online Learning Platforms: Students can avail courses as per their choice through the digital portal of the learning platforms. This e-learning platform provides both undergraduate and postgraduate courses to the students.

The e-learning initiatives of the central government is a digital platform through which students can approach the different-different course by sitting at their homes. E-learning has taken a peak due to the pandemic. Pandemic hit the education sector worst. But this platform emerges as a big opportunity for the students. It gives a new way of learning and knowledge. The students can learn under a common platform.

The coronavirus pandemic has shaken the entire nation as well as the world and education is one of the worst-hit during this impending crisis. College and university have been closed for more than 6 months to curb the spread of the pandemic. And it inversely impacted both the teachers and students. Those who completely depended on the traditional method of learning, suffering the most. In this concern, the government comes in front to save our future. E-learning is a major setback for students and teachers who can no longer access learning sources through the traditional model of learning.

To overcome this crisis, the government of India has taken several ICT information communication technology initiatives through the Ministry of Education and the UGC University Grant Commission to launch a free electronic learning or e-learning platform for students.

These online platforms offer many facilities to students, teachers, researchers, learners, tutors, where they can interconnect with each other under the same platform. These courses are available for both undergraduate and postgraduates students and conduct live online lectures; contain course content, quizzes, online test, and multimedia presentations to make them more interesting for students.

E-learning initiatives in India By Government

Here we are presenting the top e-learning platform launched by the Indian Government and the Ministry of HRD (Education Ministry).

1. The SWAYAM (Study Webs of Active Learning for Young Aspiring Minds)

SWAYAM was launched on 9 July 2017 by the Ministry of Education. It is an initiative under the Digital India campaign was undertaken by the GOI in 2015. The platform has been designed to give the best quality education to students, undergraduate, and postgraduate students in India.

The portal offers free printable and downloadable study materials, video lectures, discussion forums, and online tests from over 1600 courses. After successful completion of the course, students can get a certificate in exchange for a token fee.

Students can access the website at https://swayam.gov.in or download the mobile application from Google play store. You can register at the SWAYAM portal through a valid email ID or Facebook or Google plus accounts.

This portal accredited by:
AICTC
IGNOU
NCERT
UGC
CEC
NITTR
NIOS
IIMB

2. DIKSHA

This portal has been initiated by the Ministry of Education in September 2017 to facilitate advance digital learning for teachers from classes 1 to 12. The digital portal has been mainly designed for teacher education but is also available for students who want to connect to the teacher’s community. DIKSHA offers training courses, worksheets, lesson videos, curriculum, and assessment tests for teachers.

One of the unique features of this platform is the QR code which can be scanned to gain access to a platform of learning material and eBook. More than 80,000 eBooks are available for class 12th students in multiple languages. Android and iOS users can download the application from the Google Store or iOS app store. You can visit the official website for more details here disha.gov.in.

Also Read: IT Careers: Top IT Job In Demands For Future

3. Swayam Prabha

Swayam Prabha was conceptualized by the Ministry of Education the consists of a collection of 32 DTH channels that will telecast educational channel 24×7 for students across India. Each day, the channel will telecast a new content of 4 –hour duration

will be shown 5 times a day so that students can select the time and watch the programs according to their schedule. Contents are available for students of class 12, Undergraduate and postgraduate. Students can visit www.swayamprabha.gov.in for, more details.

4. Virtual Labs

Virtual Lab is a digital consortium founded by the Government of India in association with the Education Ministry under the NME-ICT initiation. The main idea is to provide remote access to virtual laboratories for students from science and engineering streams from both UG and PG level. This consortium is conducted by IIT Delhi and has around 12 participating institutes. The project consists of more than 700 web experiments and lab facilities under the supervision of experienced faculty.

5. E- ShodhSindhu

E-Shodhsindhu jointly planned by the Ministry of Education and the Government of India is a digital library offering access to e-resources like journals, eBooks, factual, bibliographies, citations, etc. for higher education.
This portal is offering services to all academic institutions like central and state universities and colleges.
For more details, students can visit the official site at https://ess.inflibnet.ac.in/oes.

6. e-PG Pathshala

e-PG Pathshala is an online portal for postgraduate courses started by the Ministry of Education under NME-ICT (National Mission on Education Through ICT) and the UGC. Under this drive, over 700 eBooks in over 68 PG courses will be available for free for students.

The online portal is loaded with high-quality text contents, videos, tutorials, documents, PDFs file, etc. There are three quadrants under the e-PG Pathshala module namely:

 e-Adhyayan consists of e-book and video materials.·
 MOOC (MASSIVE OPEN ONLINE COURSES) UGC courses offered under the SWAYAM portal
·
 E-Pathya provides offline and distance-learning courses for PG students.
·

The students who want to apply for the PG courses, this portal is a clear opportunity to avail of all
the PG programs.

Also Read: Best Websites For Free Online Education

7. National Digital Library of India (NDLI)

The National Digital Library NDLI developed under NME-ICT by the education ministry through NME-ICT is a virtual repository consisting of academic contents in multiple disciplines from school to post-graduation level. It is a multipurpose platform designed for the consideration of students of all ages. This platform is also beneficial for teachers, learners, researchers, librarians, professionals, and other users.

The students and other users can avail of this platform at any time 24×7 and it provides its services in more than 70 Indian languages. A wide variety of learning resources are available including E-book, video, thesis, documents, and manuscripts, etc. for the web version, users can visit https://ndl.iitkgp.ac.in.

8. National Program on Technology Enhanced Learning (NPTEL)

NPTEL is another project funded by the Government of India in collaboration with the Education Ministry. It was a collective initiative taken by the Institute of Science, Bangalore, and 7 other IIT Institute (Delhi, Kanpur, Roorkee, Madras, Bombay, Kharagpur, Guwahati and Madras.)

The online repository offers various courses in the field of engineering, science, social science, and humanities. There are no course fees, however, certification exams will cost an INR 1000 per candidate. For more details, students can visit at http://nptel.ac.in

The online platforms have been designed for the purpose of providing a better education environment at the time of crisis. These platforms are playing a major role in today’s world of the pandemic. It will help millions of users to avail of their course and research work.

 

Malnutrition, the silent pandemic

 

COVID-19 has pushed back our efforts on ending malnutrition, which plagues India's children. Urgent efforts need to be made to address the shortfalls


India is home to about 30 per cent of the world’s stunted children and nearly 50 per cent of severely wasted children under the age of five. Malnutrition remains the predominant risk factor for child deaths, accounting for 68 per cent of total under-five deaths and 17 per cent of the total disability-adjusted life years. Nutrition is not a peripheral concern. It is central to our existence. Increased food and nutrition insecurity severely weakens our immune systems and contributes to poor growth, intellectual impairment, and lowers human capital and development prospects.

COVID-19 has posed serious threats to children and their health and nutritional rights. According to recent estimates, even in the best possible scenario and accounting for changes in the provision of essential health and nutrition services due to COVID-19, India could have around additional 60,000 child deaths (around 3,00,000 in the worst-case scenario) in the next six months. Based on evidence from the field, there is a need to explore possible solutions and putting forward key policy and programme proposals for the integrated management of acute malnutrition and mitigating the impact of COVID-19.

Inadequate dietary intake and disease are directly responsible for undernutrition, but multiple indirect determinants exacerbate these causes. These include food insecurity, inadequate childcare practices, low maternal education, poor access to health services, lack of access to clean water and sanitation, and poor hygiene practices.

The lockdown disrupted access to essential services, including mid-day meals, which are not only a nutritional measure to supplement some portion of a child’s calorie needs but is also a tool to access education. Through a concurrent rapid needs assessment in its programme areas, carried out in June 2020 across 14 states and 2 union territories, and covering 7235 respondents, Save the Children found that around 40 per cent of eligible children have not received mid-day meal during the lockdown.

There is a steady and silent revolution taking place in the field of nutrition, with an ever-increasing political will on the issue. This should be sustained throughout the year and in the coming years. Since the pandemic has pushed back our efforts on ending malnutrition by a few years, here are some immediate steps that need to be taken to address the issues.

First, core indicators across the lifecycle should be prioritised and reviewed at all levels (national, state, district, and block). Second, for easy and sustained access to nutritious food, we need to bring the spotlight back on locally-available, low-cost nutritious food. We also need to maximise maternal, infant and young child nutrition actions.

Third, we need to strengthen take-home ration and mid-day meal service delivery strategies to ensure the continuation of services and coverage of the most vulnerable communities, especially in urban areas. Fourth, child-sensitive social protection schemes, like PMMVY, need to be implemented in a way so that they reach the last child.

Fifth, strict measures are needed to ensure that the PDS is accessible to all, especially the vulnerable population. Sixth, efforts to ascertain allocation and distribution of additional food supply to the most vulnerable population and to ensure food security under the Pradhan Mantri Garib Kalyan Anna Yojna (PMGKAY) for next five months, need to be undertaken urgently. Finally, the use of newer technologies in service delivery, data management, evidence generation and real-time monitoring will help this process.

Given the range of drivers of nutrition — spanning multiple sectors of agriculture, social protection, health, WASH, and education — tackling undernutrition demands a multi-sectorial response. Political, cultural, social, and economic factors also play a role. Nutrition interventions are not sufficient to tackle the problem of undernutrition: Even at 90 per cent coverage, the core set of proven nutrition-specific interventions would only decrease stunting by 20 per cent. Reducing under-nutrition requires effective implementation of both nutrition-specific and complementary nutrition-sensitive interventions, addressing the underlying and basic causes of undernutrition.

Antaryami Dash

The writer is head of nutrition at Save the Children.

Source: Indian Express, 25/09/20

Tuesday, September 15, 2020

Quote of the Day September 15, 2020

 “Rivers know this: there is no hurry. We shall get there some day.”

‐ A. A. Milne, author (1882-1956)

“नदियों को पता है: कोई जल्दी नहीं है। हम सब एक दिन गंतव्य तक पहुंच ही जाएंगे।”

‐ ए ए मिलने, लेखक (1882-1956)

Economic & Political Weekly: Table of Contents

 

Vol. 55, Issue No. 37, 12 Sep, 2020

Editorials

From the Editor's Desk

Comment

Commentary

H T Parekh Finance Column

Insight

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Notes

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From 50 Years Ago

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