Context: 

The Union Minister of Education and Skill Development & Entrepreneurship recently launched the SWAYAM Plus Platform in New Delhi. 

About the SWAYAM Plus Platform:

• It  serves as a platform to offer courses developed collaboratively with the industry to offer employability and professional development‐focused programmes.
  • List of Programmes: Manufacturing, energy, computer science and engineering, IT or ITES, management studies, healthcare, hospitality and tourism besides Indian knowledge systems.
• Operated by: The Indian Institute of Technology Madras (IIT Madras).

Target and Focus Areas of SWAYAM Plus Platform

• Building an ecosystem for all professional and career development stakeholders, including learners, course providers, industry, academia, and strategic partners.
  • By bringing features such as access to mentorship, scholarships, and job placements as value-added services in time. 
• Enabling a mechanism that provides credit recognition for high‐quality certifications and courses offered by the best industry and academia partners.
• Reaching a large learner base by catering to learning across the country, focusing on reaching learners from tier 2 and 3 towns and rural areas.
• Offering employment-focused courses, based on learner needs – across chosen disciplines with options to learn through resources in vernacular languages. 

Benefits of SWAYAM Plus Platform

• Widening the Scope: The SWAYAM Plus platform will widen the scope of the classroom, adding 43 million Higher Education students and working professionals.
  • Working professionals participate in the SWAYAM Plus platform using it as a vehicle and take advantage of the multiple-entry-multiple-exit of NEP2020. 
• Skill Enhancement: The courses are needed for the industry, futuristic courses such as semiconductors, Artificial Intelligence, etc. for the country’s youth. 
  • Applied education with SWAYAM Plus, employability, entrepreneurship, job-centric and hands-on training is a move towards that direction.
• Push for Vernacular: Courses are to be in local languages to empower every student to realise the dream of Viksit Bharat, as innovation has no language. 
• All-Round Development: Courses also involving music, painting, creative arts, humanities, and liberal arts are to be part of the SWAYAM Plus platform to bring about all-around development in our youth.
• A Multitude of Institutional Mechanisms: It will examine such proposals to ensure need-based and timely responses. 
  • The content will be available in 12 major Indian languages of the country.

News Source: PIB