The University Grants Commission (UGC) Chairman, Jagadesh Kumar said that an announcement regarding the National Digital University will be made soon.
According to Kumar, currently the online programmes provide a window of opportunity to many students who are unable to join physically in a college or University. Similarly, there is a steady increase in the number of enrolments in online programmes.
“However, this will pick up further once we announce the National Digital University together with flexible online education regulations,” tweeted Kumar.
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The UGC chairman further said that there is a need to take advantage of modern digital technologies to prepare engaging digital content and reach out to students using growing internet availability. This needs to be done at an affordable cost so that students can access high quality education and become skilful and knowledgeable.
Earlier, the UGC released an important public notice advising students and public not to be misled by advertisements for online PhD programmes offered by EduTech Companies in collaboration with Foreign Educational Institutes.
Sharing statistics, the UGC chairman said 66 Higher Educational Institutions are recognised/entitled to offer 371 programmes out of which Central, deemed to be university, state, private universities offer 21, 166, 112 and 72 programmes respectively.
Around 72,400 students including both Indians and foreign nationals are currently enrolled in 345 programmes offered by universities across the country. This is a 179 per cent jump from last year's 25,905 students, said Kumar. There has been 20,37,676 students enrolled across 86 HEIs and 1078 programmes as compared to 14,38,101 students in the last academic year.