What is the Digital University? Who Can Apply? UGC Chairman Explains its Implementation Process

The skills courses offered by the University Grants Commission-backed, digital university can be accessed by students ranging from those who have passed the class 12 examination to people who have a graduate degree. Successful completion of these courses will result in students getting certificates, diplomas, and degrees, depending on the type of course chosen, UGC told Patrika.com.

The digital university was announced by finance minister Nirmala Sitharaman, during the budget 2022-23, in February this year. It will commence operations in August next year. The UGC Chairman, Prof M Jagdish Kumar, elaborated on the curriculum and the courses offered by the digital initiative taken by the commission.

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According to Prof Kumar, the statutory body will link the educational institutes with industry experts under the Professors of Practice (POP) policy. This will allow the candidates to learn from the best in the industry. Through the POPs, students will get exposure to knowledge imparted by experts from various industry sectors such as physics, political science, computer science, and engineering.

The UGC has also partnered up with the Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology to provide these skill courses to the hinterlands and the remote corners of the country. The statutory body will use the Common Service Centres (CSCs) and Special Purpose Vehicles (SPVs) to reach to students who do not have access to digital devices. Currently, there are five lakh CSCs and SPVs across the country.

The UGC chairman also informed that the commission will launch an e-Samadhan portal to solve all the problems that arise during the online courses and beyond. The e-Samadhan courses. The e-Samadhan portal, as of September 5, has been implemented and will work 24 hours a day.

The portal will provide a single window for all the issues suffered by the students. Student-related issues will be resolved in a maximum of 10 working days. Teaching and non-teaching issues will have to be resolved in 15 days while university and college-related issues will be solved within 20 days.

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