Dr Jitendra Singh launches DoPT’s online certificate course on “Relevance of Gandhi in the Contemporary World”

New Delhi: The Union Minister of State (Independent Charge) Development of North Eastern Region (DoNER), MoS PMO, Personnel, Public Grievances, Pensions, Atomic Energy and Space, DrJitendra Singh launched the DoPT’s online certificate course on “Relevance of Gandhi in the Contemporary World” at a function here today. The online course/programme on Mahatma Gandhi is an initiative of the Department of Personnel and Training (DoPT) under the iGOTprogramme to pay tribute to Father of the Nation coinciding with the Martyr’s Day today.

Addressing the gathering, DrJitendra Singh said the Mahatma’s teachings are more relevant today than ever before. “Gandhijicreated a mass awareness for people’s participation and the freedom movement. Even today, the Swachh Bharat Mission (SBM), inspired by Bapu, has turned into a mass campaign because of translating Gandhian thought into action. As far as adopting Gandhiji’s thoughts in Government functioning is concerned, Bapu stressed upon the concept of incorruptibility,” he said. “It is not enough to weed out corruption, but it must be eliminated. Like the resort to non-violence is not an ideal of the meek and weak, but of the strong and powerful, similarly the principle of incorruptibility can be adapted to the administration,” he added.

The online module/course on “Relevance of Gandhi in the Contemporary World” under the iGOT platform will be a certificate programme. This Department has collaborated with the Centre for Gandhi and Peace Studies, Indira Gandhi National Open University (IGNOU) and Gandhi Smriti and DarshanSamiti (GS & DS), to develop this Certificate Programme.

Speaking on the occasion, Secretary, DoPT, Dr C.Chandramoulisaid the online Certificate course will soon be introduced in the Lal Bahadur Shastri National Academy of Administration, Mussoorie for Civil Services probationers undergoing training. Secretary, Department of Administrative Reforms & Public Grievances (DARPG) and Secretary, Department of Pension & Pensioners Welfare, Dr. KshatrapatiShivaji, Vice Chancellor, IGNOU, Prof. Nageshwar Rao and Senior Officers of DoPT and DARPG were present.

The IGNOU in consultation with GS&DS has prepared a syllabus of this online certificate course on “Relevance of Gandhi in the Contemporary World” which is divided into 3 Modules comprising 12 Units (4 Units under each Module) as under:-

This online course is of 6 hours duration. Initially, registrations/enrollments of first 5,000 eligible users/officials only will be accepted for any single batch on first come first serve basis. In order to ensure registration of government officials only, the registrations done through a “.nic.in” and/or “.gov.in” email domain only will be accepted. There will not be any fee for this online certificate programme for eligible Government officials.

The eligibility criteria for registration/undergoing this online certificate course is same as per the approved criteria under the Massive Open Online Courses (MOOCs) policy under which iGOTprogramme is functional.  Accordingly the eligibility criteria will be as under:

• All Indian Administrative Service (IAS) Officers, Indian Police Service (IPS), Indian Forest Service (IFoS), Group ‘A’ Central Civil Service Officers and all Group ‘A’ officers belonging to Central Secretariat Service (CSS), Central Secretariat Stenographer Service (CSSS) and State Administrative/Civil Service
• All Group ‘B’ and ‘C’ officials belonging to State Civil Services
• All Group ‘B’ and ‘C’ officials belonging to Central Secretariat Service (CSS), Central Secretariat Stenographer Service (CSSS).

However, the eligibility in terms of the length of service and upper age limit, which is 2 years and 56 years respectively for the iGOTprogramme under MOOCs Policy, will be relaxed for this course to broaden the coverage.  The course will be made available to all Central and State Government officials once the online-infrastructural arrangements with IGNOU are sorted out.

On completion of each module there will be a quiz of 20 marks (20 questions of one mark each). There will 3 quizzes which the learners have to compulsorily clear for completion of the course. Two attempts will be provided to clear the quiz. The total assessment will be of 100 marks with 60 marks for the quiz (20 marks x 3 quizzes) and 40 marks for time given for the study of the course material (data will be captured from the LMS  analytics).  The passing requirement will be 50% for each section separately.  On fulfilling the above assessment criteria, the Certificate will be autogenerated with digital signature and can be downloaded by the learners/trainees. This course will be offered online on the IGNOU in-house Learning Management System (LMS). The learning resource will include 12 Units of Self-Instructional Material with supplementary readings and video lectures (as external links). Each unit will require half an hour of reading totaling to 6 hours for the completion of course.  In the first phase this online certificate course will be in English and Hindi.  Subsequently the course will be made available in other regional languages as well.

Successful completion of the course will acquaint officers with the theories of Mahatma Gandhi and their relevance & importance in the day-to-day matters of governance of the 21^stCentury.  All the details regarding this online certificate course along with other courses, eligibility criteria and registration process etc which are available under Integrated Online Training (iGOT) programme can be accessed on www.igot.nic.in

DrJitendra Singh later chaired a Review Meeting of the DoPT during which he was apprised of the implementation of the Hundred Days’ Vision achieved by the Department. The Minister was informed that the Combined Foundation Course for all Civil Servants has been finalized and the lateral entry at Joint Secretary level completed while the process for lateral entry at Deputy Secretary level is underway. The proposal to set up the National Recruitment Agency is also in process. The recommendations of the Sectoral Group of Secretaries on DoPTis being implemented and the focus is on the themes of Capacity Building by using Digital Media platforms and Recruitment Reforms.