✅PM e-VIDYA
🔹 In News
♦️The Ministry of Education’s initiative to use ICT under the "PM eVidya" scheme during the Covid pandemic has recently won UNESCO's recognition.
✅About the News
♦️UNESCO’s King Hamad Bin Isa Al-Khalifa Prize is an award that recognizes innovative approachesin leveraging new technologies to expand educational and lifelong learning opportunities for all, in line with the UNSDG goal 4 on Education.
♦️The Prize rewards individuals and organizations that implement outstanding projects and promote the creative use of technologies to enhance learning, teaching and overall educational performance in the digital age.
🔹What is PM eVIDYA?
♦️The PM eVidya scheme is an initiative of the Ministry of Education that was launched in 2020.
♦️The scheme was launched under the One Nation One Digital Platform with the objective of protecting the education of children during the Covid-19 pandemic.
♦️It unifies all efforts related to digital/online/on-air educationto enable multi-mode access for imparting education by using technology to minimise learning losses.
♦️Therefore, in 2020, the top 100 universities were permitted to automatically start online courses via the PM eVidya scheme.
🔹It will consist of: -
♦️DIKSHA for school education in all the states/UTs
♦️One designated TV channel per class from class 1st to 12th
♦️Use of Radio, podcasts, and Community Radio
♦️Special e-content for visually and hearing impaired.
♦️Top 100 universities were allowed to conduct their online classes.
♦️Benefits of the scheme: Some of the major benefits of the scheme are –
♦️Easy to access online classes.
♦️Students can attend their classes at the comfort of their homes and staying safe during the pandemic.
♦️A one-stop destination for education.
♦️Various e-learning contents were provided.
♦️QR-coded energized books were published for all the classes.
♦️Special arrangements for visually impaired and hearing-impaired students.
♦️The students who do not have the access to internet facility can attend their classes via a DTH channel dedicated solely for educational purposes.
✅Implementation of the scheme:-
♦️For the successful implementation of the scheme, the government launched an online PM e VIDYA portal called Swayam Prabha, which is a group of34 DTH channels.
♦️These channels telecast education-related programmes every day.
♦️Another portal known as DIKSHAwas designed for school level education which provided study material for each class according to the school curriculum.
♦️Besides these, several radio programmes, podcasts and community radio sessions were organized.