Annual Refresher Programme In Teaching (ARPIT) | 21 Mar 2020

Recently, the Union Minister for Human Resource Development (HRD) informed Parliament about the Annual Refresher Programme In Teaching (ARPIT).

37,199 teachers were trained in 2018-19 under this program whereas in 2019-20, 1,46,919 teachers were trained.

It is an initiative for online professional development of 15 lakh higher education faculty using the Massive Open Online Courses (MOOCs) platform SWAYAM.
For implementing ARPIT, 75 discipline-specific institutions have been identified and notified as National Resource Centres (NRCs).
- NRCs prepare online training material with focus on latest developments in a discipline, new & emerging trends, pedagogical improvements and methodologies for transacting revised curriculum.
- NRCs are located in a mixed range of institutions such as, Central Universities, IISc, IUCAA, IITs, IISERs, NITs, State Universities.
The training materials are uploaded and made available through SWAYAM. NRC also publishes the list of the faculty who have been certified.

Massive Open Online Course

MOOC is a free Web-based distance learning program that is designed for the participation of large numbers of geographically dispersed students. The government has launched SWAYAM platform for open online courses.

SWAYAM

SWAYAM platform is indigenously developed by the Ministry of Human Resource Development (MHRD) and All India Council for Technical Education (AICTE) with the help of Microsoft.
It is designed to achieve the three cardinal principles of Education Policy viz.access, equity and quality.
The objective of this effort is to take the best teaching learning resources to all, including the most disadvantaged.