An Introduction about Swayam Plus - A New Initiative for Life Long Learning from Government of India!

Abstract:

SWAYAM Plus is aimed at enhancing the employability of both college students and professionals. It will offer programs in sectors like Manufacturing, Energy, Computer Science and Engineering/IT/ITES, Management Studies, Healthcare, Hospitality, and Tourism besides Indian Knowledge Systems, and more.

Keywords: 

Swayam, Swayam Plus, Employability, Collaboratively 

Learning Outcomes

After undergoing this article you will be able to understand about the Swayam Plus

Overview:

Recently, the Union Minister of Education and Skill Development and Entrepreneurship launched the ‘SWAYAM Plus’ platform.

About SWAYAM Plus platform

It offers courses developed collaboratively with the industry.

This platform aims to enhance employability of both college students and lifelong learners.

It will offer programmes in sectors like 

Manufacturing, 

Energy, 

Computer Science and Engineering

/IT/ITES, 

Management Studies, Healthcare, 

Hospitality and Tourism besides Indian Knowledge Systems.

Objectives

It primarily focuses on building an ecosystem for all stakeholders in professional and career development, including learners, course providers, industry, academia, and strategic partners.

It enables a mechanism that provides credit recognition for high-quality certifications and courses offered by the best industry and academia partners.

Reaching a large learner base by catering to learning across the country, with a focus on reaching learners from tiers 2 and 3 towns and rural areas.

It also envisions bringing in features such as access to mentorship, scholarships and job placements as value-added services in due course of time, thus building a digital ecosystem for learners to pursue upskilling and re-skilling at all levels, namely certificate, diploma or degree.

It features innovative elements such as multilingual content (available in 12 major Indian languages of the country), AI-enabled guidance, credit recognition, and pathways to employment.

These employability and professional development‐focused programmes have been developed with industry players including 

L&T, 

Microsoft and 

CISCO.

The Indian Institute of Technology Madras (IIT Madras) will be operating this Platform. 

Q1) What is SWAYAM?

It is a programme initiated by Government of India and designed to achieve the three cardinal principles of Education Policy viz., access, equity and quality. 

The objective of this effort is to take the best teaching learning resources to all, including the most disadvantaged. 

Overview of SWAYAM Plus

The vision of SWAYAM Plus is to ensure access and equitable opportunities for all learners to enhance their employability and professional development. It will focus on achieving the following:

Building a platform for all stakeholders in the upskilling / re-skilling, including learners, course providers, industry, academia and strategic partners to come together.

High-quality learning and certification programs from the best industry and academia at affordable costs.

Employment-focused programs imparting future skills in chosen domains

Reach a large learner base by catering to learning across the country, with a focus on reaching learners from tier 2 and 3 towns

Enabling integration with Academic Bank of Credits (ABC) so learner can accumulate credits from multiple institutions, both academic and industry, through their learning journey

Flexible offerings basis learner needs – across chosen domains with options to learn through resources in vernacular languages.

Access to Indian Knowledge Systems for learners across the globe.

1.2 How is SWAYAM Plus different from SWAYAM?

SWAYAM Plus will adopt an ecosystem approach by working with various strategic partners i.e., academic institutions, industry, edtech platforms and individual contributors, while SWAYAM currently focuses on partnerships with academic institution through 9 National Coordinators. In the due course of time, SWAYAM Plus will offer the whole gamut of qualifications. However, in the initial years, the focus will be on certification programmes.

SWAYAM Plus will have programmes in chosen sectors, namely – Manufacturing, Energy, Banking, Finance and Insurance, Healthcare, Information Technology and Services, Digital and Emerging Technologies, Social Sciences, Hospitality and Tourism, Teacher Education, Retail, Indian Knowledge Systems, Media, Communication and Soft Skills, Engineering and others.

SWAYAM Plus will offer courses across diverse sectors and not restrict itself to Engineering or technology. Sectors like Energy, Healthcare, Logistics (and more as mentioned in Q 1.2) will also be focused upon.

SWAYAM Plus will enable credit recognition of courses that learners are taking both from industry as well as academic institutions.

It aims to be accessible, affordable and provide flexible education with greater inclusivity. In the due course of time, SWAYAM Plus will offer the whole gamut of qualifications.

SWAYAM Plus is intended primarily to benefit anyone who is looking for an opportunity to upskill / reskill themselves. The courses on SWAYAM Plus are employability focused and are in diverse domains. However, the primary target audience for whom courses are chosen are learners from higher education institutions and working professionals. SWAYAM Plus will specifically focus on ensuring reach and access to learners from tier 2 and tier 3 towns and cities. In the due course of time, the courses on SWAYAM Plus will cater to a much larger audience, beyond learners from higher education institutions and working professionals.

1.5 Why will a student choose to study on SWAYAM Plus ? What are the value additions?

SWAYAM Plus aims to bring high-quality, employability-focused education from reputed industry partners and academic institutions to the learners. It will focus on maximizing student admission from across the country with no or low barriers to entry.

The platform will be multilingual, encouraging a diverse audience to choose SWAYAM Plu s as a platform of choice.

It also enables learners to earn credits for industry-offered courses and integrate with APAAR, thereby providing academic flexibility.

2.1 Who will the partner be signing up with?

The partner will be signing the MoU with IIT-Madras, which is the nodal agency for managing and implementing SWAYAM and SWAYAM Plus platforms.

Courses on this platform can be offered by the following entities in chosen domains:

Industry – learning solutions from organizations

Subject matter experts from industry and academia

Edtech Companies

Consortium of HEIs and Industry partners

3.1.2 How will partners be selected?

There will be a structured selection criterion to evaluate the partners to be onboarded on to SWAYAM Plus , to ensure high quality of courses offered and in turn credibility of the platform.

The following are the broad areas across which a partner will be evaluated:

Credibility in the field of specialization

Operational capabilities to deliver at scale

Existing availability & quality of relevant courses for SWAYAM Plus’s focus areas

Ongoing support provided by the partner to the learners of the course Interested partners can fill the Expression of Interest (EoI) form that can be found on the website.

The selection framework is subject to evolution based on needs and requirements.

The following support will be provided by SWAYAM Plus to the partners:

Promote the courses on the platform to learners

Provide technology infrastructure – both LMS and student lifecycle management

Assessment administration if the partner can’t administer the exams on their own

ABC integration and credit recognition for courses offered both by industry as well as academia

Value-added services such as access to job opportunities, mentorship, loans, scholarships, platform features to enable peer-to-peer learning, etc, in due course of time.

Onboarding of universities and HEIs to take up courses from SWAYAM Plus

Increased visibility through access to a high volume of learners.

Reduced operational costs by reducing marketing and customer acquisition costs.

Dedicated platform-based support to manage admission, course administration, and delivery.

Opportunity to collaborate with other reputed HEIs/industry players to enhance brand image and course offerings.

Increased credibility by partnering with the Government and contributing to nation-building.

Opportunity to attract high-quality and relevant talent through internships and apprenticeships, early in the careers of the talent.

While partners are free to offer courses irrespective of duration and delivery methods, if they want to have credit recognition for the courses, they need to align their courses to the National Credit Framework (NCrF). Programme Implementation Committee (PIC) will have a final say in the selection of the courses.

The selection criteria for courses will encompass a variety of factors, with preference being given to courses that align with employability demand and are skill based. These courses will be evaluated by th e empowered sector PIC before onboarding.

The certificates will be offered jointly with the credentials of both SWAYAM Plus & the partner offering the course. Logos of both parties, along with Skill India logo will be prominently positioned on the certificate.

Yes, a student can undertake multiple courses/certifications at the same time. A student can also pursue two degree courses at the same time, including one course through regular mode and the other through SWAYAM Plus .

The mode of assessment and delivery will fall under the purview of the partner, and SWAYAM Plus platform shall support the partner in cases where the partner doesn’t have the infrastructure or resources to conduct assessments. The assessments shall be compulsorily proctored (online/ offline).

5. Technology and support related

The partner can use their own LMS to host courses, but the partners have an option to host their course on SWAYAM’s LMS too.

For the courses that the specific partner offer, learner analytics data will be made available. Similarly, for the courses hosted on partner’s LMS, the partners are expected to make learner data available to SWAYAM.

The framework for API integration and data sharing requirements between SWAYAM and partner LMS will be shared with partners at the time of course onboarding.

Yes, SWAYAM Plus will have a dedicated technology support team.

6. Contractual bindings

The course provider owns all rights of intellectual property of the content hosted on SWAYAM Plus.

Data Collection: The portal shall collect minimal user data necessary for creating accounts and providing personalized learning experiences to learners, such as email addresses etc.,

Data Usage: User data is primarily used to personalize the learning experience, track progress, and provide relevant content and recommendations. It may also be used for communication purposes, like sending course updates and notifications.

Data Security: User data shall be stored securely with encryption. Regular security audits and maintenance shall be carried out to maintain data integrity

References:

Swayam portal