UGC asks educational institutes to take MOOCs on SWAYAM platform; allow credit transfer

NEW DELHI: The University Grants Commission (UGC) has asked the educational institutions and universities to accept Massive Open Online Courses (MOOCs) offered by SWAYAM for credit transfer. The UGC has written a letter to the vice-chancellors (VCs) of the higher educational institutions urging them to do the needful in this regard. To ensure the continued flow of learning for the students during the lockdown (caused by the COVID-19 pandemic), the UGC has even shared the links of various initiatives of UGC and MHRD including the MOOCs offered on SWAYAM platform with the educational institutes.

The UGC letter reads, “In the prevailing COVID-19 scenario, universities and colleges are encouraged to make the optimum use of the SWAYAM online platform for the benefit of the students. The list of 82 UG and 42 PG MOOCs courses, which are approved by the SWAYAM Board, and ready to be offered in July semester 2020.”

This means that while creating the academic record of the students across the higher educational institutes, their credit scores in SWAYAM based MOOCs will be taken into account for the respective subjects or courses. The UGC further urged the universities, colleges to come forward and adopt SWAYAM courses for credit transfer and encourage more and more students to enrol in these courses.

Even Minister of Human Resource Development Ramesh Pokhriyal Nishank took to his twitter handle to reconfirm this.

Check HRD Minister's tweet here:

MOOCs offered on @SWAYAMMHRD will now be accepted for credit mobility in colleges as per UGC guidelines!
Another incredible step to maintain continuity of learning for students!
Check out the courses approved & ready to be offered in July'20 semester here: https://t.co/cUnYHqqPze pic.twitter.com/jwSRTUwg0K

— Dr Ramesh Pokhriyal Nishank (@DrRPNishank) May 21, 2020

The SWAYAM Examination for July 2020 semester will be conducted by the National Testing Agency (NTA) for UG and PG courses on November 14 and 15, 2020. Around 25 lakh students or learners had already been enrolled for the January semester 2020 of SWAYAM. Since March 23 onwards, over 50,000 students have been able to get access to SWAYAM platform which has a repository of over 1900 courses.