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The UGC has shelved a proposal for increasing the cost of online higher education. As per the proposal, the universities were asked to pay 15 per cent of the fees they collect from the students for using the SWAYAM platform.
The University Grants Commission has dropped a proposal which could have led to an increase in the cost of online higher education. Under this proposal, the universities were asked to pay to the centre’s e-content platform, SWAYAM 15 per cent of the fees they collect from the students who use the platform.
A UGC official said that the regulator didn’t want to make it difficult for the students as the universities would have asked the students to pay the extra charge. UGC also wanted to avoid the criticism from academics that the current promotion of online education would hamper the quality and victimise the not so privileged students.
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The fee share proposal has come at a time when the UGC is about to announce an expansion of the online courses amid COVID-19. These courses will rely on SWAYAM. So, getting some share of the student fee would have been beneficial for the platform, which is managed by the HRD ministry along with some help from NPTEL and IIT Madras, which report to it.
The proposal had come from the SWAYAM board, headed by the higher education secretary who works under the HRD Ministry. Presently, the universities have allowed students to learn up to 20 per cent of certain non-technical courses from the SWAYAM platform with the credits transferred to their regular academic account. In order to do so, the universities charge an extra Rs.500 to meet the expenses such as conducting proctored tests.
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The UGC has also decided to increase the 20 per cent limit to 40 and has allowed 100 top universities to begin new online courses by May 30, 2020.
