Coronavirus induced pandemic has forced the shut down of schools and colleges across the country. This has hit hard the students from the middle- and lower-class background. Also, many e-learning Platforms in India have cropped up during this time. Some are free e-learning platforms while others are paid e-learning platforms.
But students do not have the resources to join these expensive courses online. Moreover, the quality of such courses should be taken with a pinch of salt. So, we have brought you the list of free government e-learning platforms that are provided by the various departments of the Government of India.
The courses available on these websites are designed as per the rules of education authority in India like AICTE, UGC, MHRD and others. Thus, these resources can be relied upon for education purposes.
At School Level
SHAGUN Online Junction
Launched in 2019 by Ministry of Human Resource Development of Government of India.
Term Shagun is derived from two words, namely, ‘Shala’ meaning Schools and ‘Gunvatta’ meaning Quality.
It is one of the world’s largest Integrated Online Junction for School Education ‘Shagun’. As the name suggests, different websites and portals are brought together into a single platform so that students from schools can get different information at one place only.
It was launched to improve the school education system by bringing various activities under Department of School Education and Literacy in Government of India and all States and Union Territories under single platform.
The platforms under SHAGUN are:
· NROER
· DIKSHA
· E-PATHSHALA
National Repository of Open Educational Resources
It is a collaborative platform which brings together everyone interested in school and teacher education.
It provides:
· Open Education curriculum for various subjects like Mathematics, Physics, Chemistry, Biology, Geography, History and other subjects.
· E-library for homogeneous collection of study resources in form of e-books. There are thousands of e-books available with images, interactives, audios, and videos.
· E-courses for online that contain topics from various subjects and lessons over such topics.
DIKSHA
It provides digital infrastructure for school education. It is an initiative of National Council of Education Research and Training (NCERT).
It provides the content by the following educational bodies:
· NCERT
· CBSE
· NIOS
· State/UTs Boards
The content is available in multiple languages and can be accessed by scanning the QR code given in the school textbooks. There are e-pdfs and explanatory videos available on the app that are uploaded by various contributory teachers for the students.
E-pathshala
It is also developed by NCERT and CIET. It provides multi lingual access to numerous resources including audios, videos, epubs and flipbooks. This platform can be easily accessed through laptop, desktop, tablets and smart phones.
Digital textbooks for all the classes from 1st to 12th are available on e-pathsala. It in one of the best government e-learning website.
Moreover, it hosts various events where students can participate like workshops, contests and festivals.
SWAYAM
It is a National Online Education platform launched on July 9 2017 by Ministry of Human Resource Development (MHRD) to provide one integrated platform and portal for online courses.
SWAYAM stands for Study Webs of Active Learning for Young Aspiring Minds. It is a Massive open learning course (MOOC) platform under Digital India programme.
It covers 1st and 12th class syllabus as well as skill sector courses to ensure that every student in the country has access to the best quality higher education at the affordable cost.
It also provides courses for UG and PG courses.
SWAYAM PRABHA
32 high quality Educational channels through DTH are provided across the length and breadth of the country 24x7 basis.
It has curriculum-based course content covering diverse disciplines to make quality learning resources accessible to remote areas where internet connectivity is a challenge.
It is a lifeline for those students who cannot afford smart phones and internet.
At Graduate & Post-Graduate Level
e-PG Pathshala
It is Government e learning Websites for postgraduate courses. It was started by the Ministry of Education under NME-ICT (National Mission on Education through ICT) and the UGC.
On this platform e-content in almost 70 subjects across all disciplines of social science, arts, fine arts and humanities, natural and mathematical science and others are present.
There are high-quality text contents, illustrations, videos, tutorials, documents, PDFs, etc.
Under this initiative, three modules are present:
· E-Adhyayan: Here, 700+ e-books are provided for Post-Graduation courses along with video content.
· MOOC (Massive Open Online Courses): UGC-MOOCs produces courses for post graduate subjects.
· E-Pathya: It offers offline and distance-learning courses for postgraduate students. It is a software driven course/content package for higher education.
E-ShodhSindhu
It has been formed by merging three consortia initiatives, namely
· UGC-INFONET Digital library Consortium
· NLIST
· INDEST-AICTE Consortium
It provides current as well as archival access to more than 10,000 core and peer-reviewed journal and a number of bibliographic, citation and factual databases in different disciplines from a large number of publishers and aggregators to its member institutions.
All academic institutions like central and state universities and colleges can avail of the services provided.
For Technical Courses
NAPTEL Online Certification
National Programme on Technology Enhanced Learning was established in 2014. It is a project funded by Ministry of Home Affairs Govt of India and managed by IIT Chennai. Other IIT institutions also contribute content to this government e-learning website.
It offers courses in Engineering, science, social sciences and humanities. Though, there is no course fee but fee is applicable to certification exams. There are 41 domains across 10 disciplines available on NAPTEL.
NAPTEL has been giving course level certificates and there have been quite a few students doing multiple courses from NAPTEL, which are not always connected. Hence, NAPTEL has linked various courses from different backgrounds that go together building on the foundations and then going in for the electives.
Virtual Labs
Virtual Labs is a Best Free eLearning Platform in India initiative of Ministry of Education under National Mission on Education through ICT.
It aims to provide remote access to virtual laboratories for students from science and engineering streams from both undergraduate and postgraduate levels. So that students can conduct experiments by arousing their curiosity.
It provides a complete Learning Management System where the students can avail the various tools for learning, video lectures, animated demonstrations and self-evaluation.
This consortium is conducted by IIT Delhi and has around 12 participating institutes. The project consists of 700+ web experiments and lab facilities under the supervision of experienced faculties.
