2023 to witness launch of India’s first digital university, to open new higher education avenues

NEW DELHI: Starting 2023-24 academic session, students can get 50% of requisite credits from one university and rest from a higher education institution (HEI) of their choice to earn a degree from any top university of the country. The other option is to earn credits from different partner HEIs and get a degree from the National Digital University (NDU).
Higher education will witness two major developments in 2023 — launch of India’s first digital university and establishment of the Higher Education Commission of India (HECI). As per the plans underway, NDU will offer higher education aspirants the flexibility to earn degrees from participating higher education institutions or the digital university. The digital university is seen as a major step towards better employability through programmes in emerging areas and attaining 50% gross enrolment ration (GER) in higher education by 2030, as envisaged in the National Education Policy, 2020.
The digital university will start its operations in the next academic session with certificate and diploma programmes and offer degree courses subsequently. As per the university’s planned architecture, TOI has learnt, the digital content would be hosted on the Study Webs of Active-Learning for Young Aspiring Minds (SWAYAM) platform. At the same time, the technology and administrative delivery will be entrusted to the Samarth platform, aimed at building digital campuses, which provide effortless and democratic delivery of educational services.
Built on the ‘hub and spoke’ model, while SWAYAM and Samarth will be the hub, the spokes will be formed by the HEIs which will offer online courses through the digital university. Initially, the courses available in the SWAYAM platform will form the core courses of the university, along with a few select universities already offering such online programmes. Both government and private universities fulfilling the eligibility conditions can offer online programmes through NDU.
Students can register for programmes of individual universities via NDU. For example, if a candidate registers for an online programme offered by Delhi University and earns 50% of the credits, the degree will be awarded by DU. However, a candidate may also register with NDU and earn the requisite credits from different partner universities. Based on the credits accumulated and credited with the Academic Bank of Credit (ABC), the degree, diploma or certificate will be conferred by the NDU.
Like any undergraduate programme, multiple entry and exit facilities will also be offered by the digital university. UGC chairperson Professor M Jagadesh Kumar said: “The National Digital University will offer a whole gamut of qualifications and bring together various universities with no upper cap on the number of seats so that Class XII passouts can access high quality higher education, improving their employability and GER in the country.”
TOI also learnt that the work on the HECI draft bill too is in the advanced stages. Once the HECI bill is passed in Parliament, probably in the Budget session in 2023, the current regulators — UGC, AICTE and National Council for Teacher Education — will be subsumed in it to bring the much-needed synchronisation of various regulations required to coordinate, determine and maintain the quality of higher education in India.