In her Budget speech, Union Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman announced the setting up of a digital university – a necessity triggered by the Covid-19 pandemic and the subsequent shift to virtual learning – but there has been no clarity on plans to implement it. Even as the Centre chalks out a road map for the same, the Maharashtra government is already working towards setting up a virtual varsity following an announcement it made two months ago.
On February 17, a committee set up under the chairmanship of former Savitribai Phule Pune University (SPPU) Vice-Chancellor Dr R K Shegaonkar will meet to deliberate on the nature, function and structure of the university – its second meeting in a month.
The committee has been given the task of studying the provisions of the National Education Policy 2020 as well as the structure of online universities set up in countries abroad and suggesting a framework for setting up such an online university in Maharashtra.
Dr Vasudev Gade, Vice-President of Vishwakarma University and former VC of SPPU who is another member of the committee, said similar universities exist in the US and the UK. “First, we need to study the administrative and operative structures, how do these digital universities work? Then we need to study how these universities are set up. We had a meeting earlier and now we are meeting after some time, in between we have studied about the universities set up abroad,” he said.
“More importantly, we need to find the distinction between them and traditional universities. If the same commerce, arts, science degrees are offered online, where there is no compulsion on physical attendance or writing lengthy pen-paper exams, then wouldn’t it impact traditional universities?” Gade pointed out.
The committee is drawing up a list of the kind of courses which can be offered through the university, with special focus on skill-based education and technology-oriented courses.
In its directive to the committee, the state government has entrusted it with the task of studying all aspects of setting up an online university, including those related to its syllabus, lectures, study materials, teaching staff and their credentials, as well as training needed, study centres and their structures, human resources needed, infrastructure, examinations and results, and the courses offered via-a-vis traditional universities.
It would also need to study their distance education programmes, duration of courses and fee structure, among other things. The committee has also been asked to suggest if it would be viable to set up an online university or rather make courses of non-agricultural universities and colleges available online.
Gade said the pandemic has brought many “disruptions” in the education sector, some of which can lead to positive and permanent changes in course delivery, pedagogy and approach to education.
“This is a new way of delivering education and while we were forced to confront it during a pandemic, maybe we now need to internalise it and mainstream it, at least as an alternate means. If we offer the same courses then we need to bring in some differentiation in terms of who it can be offered to or some prerequisites, so online universities work parallel to traditional universities or in conjunction with them. The digital university which is being proposed, though, is being envisaged as an independent self-sufficient entity, imparting its own courses and issuing its own degrees. Something on the lines of education anywhere to anyone,” said Gade.