Union Minister for Human Resource Development Kapil Sibal has hoped that in coming years the physical barriers of universities can be broken allowing students to take up courses in any institute across the globe through virtual medium. He also hinted that a virtual university may soon come up in the country offering students’ immense opportunities.
While speaking at the Indo-U.S. higher education summit at Washington, USA recently, Sibal also said that the 21st century classrooms would be different and the content of pedagogy too would be radically altered. “Customized learning across cultures will be the dominant theme of higher education. We need to open up the university as a learning space, embrace collaborative knowledge production, and break down the walls between institutions”, he said.
Endorsing Sibal’s vision, Prof V.G. Idichandy, former deputy director of IIT-Madras said, virtual mode will eventually happen, as we start moving on to virtual classrooms. “There is nothing wrong in removing physical barriers, as it will help many who want to study in distance education mode. This will help us to provide education to more students across the globe. Virtual university will help us achieve anybody, anywhere, anytime concept. This has to happen soon,” he said.
Mentioning that the IITs national programme on technology enabled learning (NPTEL) education had been a great hit among student community; Prof. Idichandy said that NPTEL was designed for virtual education. “Once we have enough number of courses in NPTEL, we will have a virtual university. The HRD ministry has agreed to make it as a virtual university”, he said.
The second phase of NPTEL, which is expected to be over by 2012, will have 1,500 courses to cover all undergraduate disciplines.
[Source: Deccan Chronicle]
