Home » UGC reforms: Edtech firms can tie up with Universities to develop online courses

Edtech companies will soon be allowed to “collaborate” with higher education institutes offering online undergraduate and postgraduate degrees to help develop course content and carry out evaluation of students under a set of sweeping reforms planned by the University Grants Commission (UGC).
UGC chairperson M Jagadesh Kumar told that the proposed amendments are aimed at encouraging greater flexibility for colleges and universities and harnessing the technological tools available with the fast growing ed-tech sector.
Through amendments in the UGC (Open and Distance Learning Programmes and Online Programmes) Regulations, 2020, universities and colleges offering online UG and PG programmes will be allowed to collaborate with ed-tech platforms towards developing course content and Financial Rules.

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The amended draft regulations are likely to be put out in public domain for suggestions and feedback in the first week of March.
The regulator also plans to allow top-rated autonomous colleges to offer online degrees from the 2022-23 academic session.
Colleges covered-
- Autonomous colleges that have been among the top 100 rank holders in NIRF (National Institute Ranking Framework) twice in the last three cycles or have NAAC grading of minimum 3.26 will be covered under the relaxations.
Currently, only universities and their constituent colleges that fulfill these criteria are allowed to offer online degrees.
At present, 59 universities offer 120 UG, 29 PG and two PG diploma degrees online, of which 15 per cent are science courses, 50 per cent related to business administration, and 35 per cent to humanities.
The initiative to formalise the involvement of the ed-tech sector in digital education comes at a time when the government has been urging the industry players to conduct their businesses with more transparency.

Education Technology(also known as “EdTech”) refers to an area of digital technology devoted to the development and application of tools (including software, hardware, and appropriate technological processes) intended to promote education.
EdTech is a study and ethical practice for facilitating student learning and improving performance by creating, using and managing appropriate technological processes and resources
Byju’s, Simplilearn, Unacademy, upGrad and Vedantu are the examples of edtech firms in india.

Future of EdTech industry india:

As per the recent population census survey, nearly 580 million Indians are between 5-24 years of age, with about 250 million of them currently enrolled in schools.
This means that about 36 per cent of India’s population is young and learning.
That’s a huge market for the education sector to leverage and grow.
Like any other sector, the education sector has also seen an online transformation post COVID. However, by 2026 the online education industry is set to grow by 11.6 billion. This proves that the EdTech revolution is not a temporary adjustment but a permanent solution.

Educational technology offers numerous significant advantages. Educators believe that different students learn at different paces and learn best in diverse ways.
For example, while some students learn information best from reading, others benefit more from audio-visual presentations of information. EdTech offers students the flexibility to access learning from the sources they find most helpful and effective.
A major benefit hailed by online learning students is that of being able to access teaching and training at their own individual pace and time. The flexibility to access online learning at whatever time is most convenient for the student makes education and ongoing professional training much more available to all types of people, in all types of situations.
It is particularly helpful to people with a full-time job and, therefore, would find it extremely difficult to attend regular courses at a university.
An obvious and substantial benefit of EdTech is the massive potential cost savings in education. Online e-learning can be provided at a fraction of the cost of attending a major university or even a small community college.
The reduced cost of online learning makes obtaining a degree or additional professional certification much more affordable for anyone interested in expanding their knowledge and skills.

While EdTech offers many obvious benefits, there is one major concern regarding its use for young children. Many educational theorists, psychologists, and sociologists fear that students learning solely online will suffer from a failure to develop social skills that come only from interacting in person with other people.
For that reason, educators caution that parents of children using distance learning should be careful to arrange regular social interactions with other children through several avenues, such as sports activities and field trips.
Of course, in the midst of the COVID-19 pandemic, virtually everyone is suffering from an absence of ordinary social interactions.

The University Grants Commission of India (UGC India) is a statutory body set up by the Department of Higher Education, Ministry of Education, Government of India in accordance to the UGC Act 1956
Founded in 1953
Chairman – Dr. Mamidala jagadesh kumar
Headquarters – New Delhi
It provides recognition to universities in India, and disbursements of funds to such recognized universities and colleges.

UGC reforms: Edtech firms can tie up with Universities to develop online courses