President of India Pranab Mukherjee launched the SWAYAM, the portal that takes high quality education to the doorstep of everyone.
Along with this, he has also launched the SWAYAM Prabha – the 32 DTH channels operationalised for telecasting high quality educational content free of charge using the GSAT-15 satellite transponders.
With the launch of SWAYAM, India has become one of the few countries in the World which has its own online interactive learning platform that provides, not only video lectures, reading material but also assignments/quizzes that could end up in securing credits after completing the assessment system.
More than 400 Courses are available on SWAYAM covering all the engineering and non-engineering subjects at undergraduate and post-graduate levels.
The UGC has already issued Regulation that allows transfer of credits earned through the courses done through SWAYAM into the academic record of the students.
It is now possible for the students and others to take courses of the prestigious IITs or IIMs without formally studying there.
The platform has been constructed by Microsoft with totally indigenous efforts. The courses are available on www.swayam.gov.in
The SWAYAM Prabha channels are available for free for anyone who has a set top box to receive either DD Free Dish or DishTV. These channels transmit 4 hours of fresh content every day, and contain lectures from the best teachers in the Country.
There is no monthly charge for viewing these channels. These channels include the IIT-PAL channels which were intended to help students taking the prestigious JEE examination, taught by the IIT faculty.