Which one among the following is not a part of the SWAYAM programme?
- (a)Video lectures
- (b)Classroom lectures
- (c)Online discussion forum for clearing doubts
- (d)Specially prepared material that can be downloaded/printed
Correct — B, Classroom lectures. SWAYAM is the Government of India's platform for massive open online courses, and its own description sets out four elements that every course on it carries: a video lecture; specially prepared reading material that can be downloaded or printed; self-assessment through tests and quizzes; and an online discussion forum for clearing doubts. Three of the four options in this question are those elements almost word for word. The one left over is the classroom, and it is left over by design — the whole purpose of the platform is to deliver teaching to a learner who is not in a lecture hall, anywhere in the country and at no cost. UPSC put the same idea to candidates in 2016, keying that SWAYAM aims at providing affordable and quality education to citizens for free.
- (a)Video lectures — The first of the four elements. The video lecture is what replaces the classroom session on the platform, so it is present rather than absent.
- (c)Online discussion forum for clearing doubts — The fourth element, and the one that substitutes for asking a question after class. Every course carries a forum for exactly that purpose.
- (d)Specially prepared material that can be downloaded/printed — The second element, in the platform's own words. Material that can be printed matters where connectivity is poor, which is part of why it is specified.
SWAYAM hosts courses from the school stage through to post-graduation, free to any learner, with certification available on payment of a fee for those who want it. Courses are prepared by faculty across the country and coordinated by national bodies for different sectors — NPTEL for engineering, the University Grants Commission and others for their own domains. The four-element design is deliberate: it takes the pieces of a real course — the lecture, the reading, the assessment and the chance to ask — and rebuilds each of them for a learner working alone.
A question of this shape is really asking whether you know what a MOOC is. Once you see that three options describe things a screen can deliver and one describes a room, the answer follows without any knowledge of the platform. The design point behind it is worth keeping: the four elements are sometimes called the four quadrants, and each maps on to a part of conventional teaching. The video takes the place of the lecture, the downloadable material takes the place of the handout and the library, the quizzes take the place of the class test, and the forum takes the place of the queue at the teacher's desk. It is also worth keeping SWAYAM apart from the other government e-education names that turn up as decoys, such as the DIKSHA platform for school teachers and the SWAYAM Prabha television channels.
- SWAYAM courses carry four elements: video lectures; specially prepared reading material that can be downloaded or printed; self-assessment through tests and quizzes; and an online discussion forum for clearing doubts.
- It is a Government of India programme under the Ministry of Education, and courses are free to take.
- Ten National Coordinators, including NPTEL, AICTE, UGC and NCERT, look after different sectors of the platform.
- The current platform was developed by the Ministry with NPTEL and IIT Madras, with help from Google Inc. and Persistent Systems.
- UPSC's 2016 prelims keyed SWAYAM's aim as providing affordable and quality education to citizens for free.
Three options are the platform's own words for its elements; the fourth is the thing it was built to do without.
- Reading 'video lectures' as a classroom activity and rejecting it. The video is what replaces the classroom.
- Confusing SWAYAM with SWAYAM Prabha, the television channel service, or with DIKSHA for school teachers.
- Assuming a government online platform must charge. Course access is free; only certification carries a fee.
As an odd-one-out among a programme's components, as a what-does-this-scheme-aim-at question, or as a scheme-to-ministry match.
'SWAYAM', an initiative of the Government of India, aims at
- (a) promoting the Self Help Groups in rural areas
- (b) providing financial and technical assistance to young start-up entrepreneurs
- (c) promoting the education and health of adolescent girls
- (d) providing affordable and quality education to the citizens for free
Answer(d) providing affordable and quality education to the citizens for free
The same platform, asked for its purpose rather than its parts. It also shows the decoy family UPSC likes here — self-help groups and adolescent-girl schemes with similar-sounding names, which is worth knowing before meeting SWAYAM in any paper.
- practice — not a real PYQ
SWAYAM is an initiative of the Government of India in the field of
- (a)rural self-employment
- (b)online education
- (c)women's self-help groups
- (d)start-up funding
Answer(b) online education — it is the government's platform for massive open online courses, free to any learner.
- practice — not a real PYQ
Which one of the following is a component of every SWAYAM course?
- (a)A compulsory laboratory session
- (b)An online discussion forum for clearing doubts
- (c)A residential contact programme
- (d)A printed textbook posted to the learner
Answer(b) An online discussion forum for clearing doubts — one of the four elements, alongside video lectures, downloadable reading material and self-assessment quizzes.