Dharmendra Pradhan to give 'ed-tech free' coupons to 12 lakh students: AICTE

NEW DELHI: Dharmendra Pradhan, minister of education, with give away free ed-tech coupons to 12 lakh socially and economically disadvantaged students on the launch of the public-private partnership National Educational Alliance for Technology (NEAT) 3.0, on January 3, 2022. NEAT 3.0 will also include AI-based schools and other non-technical higher education courses.

The Ministry of education had announced NEAT, a public-private partnership between the government and education technology companies in India, in January 2020. The initiative is managed by the technical education regulator, the All India Council for Technical Education (AICTE).

“Artificial intelligence-enabled products for advanced learning would be selected for presenting on the portal. Many courses are made available free of cost to socially and economically discriminated and unprivileged students,” said the statement from AICTE.

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The 12 lakh free coupons with the AICTE will be provided to those students whose annual family income is less than Rs 8 lakh per annum. These free-of-cost coupons will be distributed through the NEAT portal.

Edu-tech companies that make education more socially and economically viable were selected by AICTE, the statement said. These companies help students acquire relevant knowledge and skills in new technology, computers, among others.

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“The artificial intelligence-enabled system chooses subjects by assessing the ability of every student. Students are taught in different ways according to their individual abilities,” said the statement from AICTE.

Students can register for the free NEAT courses up to December 31, 2021, at the AICTE internship portal at internship.aicte-india.org.