IIT Madras & LPU organised Awareness Workshop on MHRD’s biggest Initiative ‘NPTEL’

Jalandhar: In order to transform India into a strong and vibrant knowledge economy, Ministry of Human Resource Development of India has launched its one of the biggest initiatives ‘National Programme of Technology Enhanced Learning (NPTEL). It is an open platform through which thousands of lectures in engineering and sciences are available free of cost to all universities and colleges. Like world renowned Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), USA, it has already become one of the biggest free and open learning programme in the world. For this initiative in the region, IIT Madras and Lovely Professional University collaborated and organized one-day awareness workshop at LPU campus, where 200+ Principals, Deans, HODs and faculty members from 109 universities and colleges participated in it.
The key note speakers were NPTEL coordinators from IIT Madras, Prof Andrew Thangaraj and Prof Pratap Haridoss, both of whom highlighted the opportunities for education anywhere, anytime, for anyone, through NPTEL. Informing they said: “Through NPTEL, one can make an access to high quality education for various courses on a click and that too free of cost. All teachers and students can use tools for various courses to enhance quality of teaching and knowledge.” Highlighting, NPTEL contents have been created by 7 Indian Institutes of Technology (IITs of Bombay, Delhi, Guwahati, Kanpur, Kharagpur, Roorkee, Patna) and Indian Institute of Sciences (IIS Bangalore); whereas, coordinating Institute for the whole programme is IIT Madras.
Felicitating the resource persons for spreading awareness on affordable online education forcefully, LPU Pro Chancellor Mrs Rashmi Mittal shared: “As education ought to be transformative, accessible to all, and of the highest quality; LPU always welcomes such endeavours by playing leadership role. LPU already has a league of earnest collaborations with government bodies for many such initiatives.”
The participating Principals, Deans, HODS and faculty members appreciated the knowledge gained and resolved to share it with student community for offering inclusive online education to all. LPU Executive Dean Dr Lovi Raj Gupta admitted the importance of online education vis a vis the learning pattern of today’s youth. He also emphasized on the continuous updation of the faculty via e-learning. Principal Jugraj Singh from Begowal, Principal SK Mahajan from Phillaur, Principal Sanjeev Sharma from Bathinda and some of other participants were happy to share unanimously that the programme was very informative and productive. Various questions put forth by the participants including “why one should go for NPTEL; is this along the lines of Open Courseware by Massachusetts Institute of Technology, USA; how is NPTEL implemented; how it is useful for industries, teachers, institutions, community and students; current status of the project; how to access course contents; and, many other were suitably answered by the experts.