PM e-VIDYA Programme to Prioritize the Roots of Digital Education in India

To promote digital education in India, Union Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman launched the Pradhan Mantri e-VIDYA portal.

In view of the hardships and difficulties faced by students due to the COVID-19 pandemic, the Union Minister Nirmala Sitharaman on Sunday launched the PM eVidya Programme. The motive behind to introduce this e-learning portal is to promote digital education in India and make e-learning feasible for students. With the support of the Pradhan Mantri e-VIDYA programme, students and teachers will get multimode access to digital education via online classes, radio, TV channels, and podcasts.

What is Pradhan Mantri e-VIDYA Programme?

PM e-VIDYA Programme is an initiative for multimode access to gain online education through different modes. Top 100 universities over the country will be permitted to automatically start online courses by 30^th May 2020. As per the central government, this multi-mode access programme to be launched immediately and would consists of “DIKSHA” scheme for school education in states and union territories that would provide e-content and QR coded textbooks for all grades.

PM e-VIDYA Initiative – Objective of the Programme

With all educational institutes or colleges shut down in the nation, in a wake of coronavirus outbreak and the nationwide lockdown, the students are suffering academically. To combat the COVID-19 crisis, Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman introduced the PM eVidya Programme, a venture by the central government which will allow and help students gain access to educational content at home.

The scheme has an objective of promoting e-learning and digital content for students across the nation. There will be different modes to access this programme, as a lot of students don’t have a proper internet connection. Those students can learn and take lessons through television and radio during the nationwide lockdown.

More than this, Nirmala Sitharaman described the niceties of this programme while discussing the final trench of the “Atmanirbhar Bharat Abhiyan” announced by Prime Minister Narendra Modi, which focuses on economical packages to help and uplift the citizens of India during the nationwide lockdown of COVID-19 crisis and outbreak.

PM eVidya Programme: Details You Need To Know

The Pradhan Mantri E-Vidya Yojana is a venture to promote digital educational content among students and teachers. The programme is being launched immediately and will consist of-

1. DIKSHA “one nation, one digital platform” for school education: DIKSHA will consist of e-content and energized textbooks for all grades students (1^st to 12^th) in all the schools across the states and union territories of the country.
2. Extensive use of radio, community radio, television programmes, and podcasts to broadcast academic syllabus for students living in nearby localities.
3. Top 100 universities in the country are permitted to start online courses from May 30 via television and radio.
4. Opportunity rich platform for over 3.7 crore students in higher education and expand e-learning by liberalizing distance, open, and online education regulatory framework, the top 100 universities will start online courses.
5. Nearly 25 crore school-going children will be benefited under the scheme.
6. The programme will be conducted in 14 languages - Assamese, Bengali, English, Gujarati, Hindi, Kannada, Malayalam, Marathi, Odia, Sindhi, Tamil, Telugu, Urdu, Chhattisgarhi.
7. Students can access 289 Community Radio Stations and Podcast called as Shiksha Vani for audio content is available on time.
8. Students can also download CBSE Shiksha Vani app from Playstores. Available only for android users.
9. For visually and hearing impaired students the government has developed a Digitally Accessible Information System – DAISY. They can sign-up at NIOS website or YouTube to avail the benefits.

These preventive measures have one primary focus i.e. to help students and teachers and enable them to access educational content even if they don't have access to a stable internet connection. Most of the key features of this plan will be put into action immediately, just to make sure students utilise their lockdown breaks.

How to Enrol for Pradhan Mantri E-Vidya Yojana?

To keep a record of students, it is important to introduce an application/registration portal. Although the programme has not been launched yet, students can have a look at the following steps to get an idea of how they can enrol themselves for the programme.

• Students need to visit the Official Website of E-Vidya.
• On the homepage, click on the relevant link to complete the Online Registration Process.
• Once registered, log in to the account by using the required credentials.
• Choose the course and then start learning online.

Note: The detailed step-by-step guide will be shared once the official website or mobile app is launched.