Context: Recently, the Union Minister for Human Resource Development held a detailed review of the National online education platform SWAYAM and the 32 DTH Television Education Channels SWAYAM PRABHA.
About SWAYAM

• It is a Hindi acronym that stands for "Study Webs of Active-Learning for Young Aspiring Minds".
• It is a programme initiated by Government of India and designed to achieve the three cardinal principles of Education Policy viz., access, equity and quality.
• Its objective is to take the best teaching learning resources to all, including the most disadvantaged.
• It seeks to bridge the digital divide for students who have hitherto remained untouched by the digital revolution and have not been able to join the mainstream of the knowledge economy.
• The courses hosted on SWAYAM are in 4 quadrants such as video lecture, specially prepared reading material that can be downloaded/printed, self-assessment tests through tests and quizzes and an online discussion forum for clearing the doubts.
• Courses delivered through SWAYAM are available free of cost to the learners, however learners wanting a SWAYAM certificate should register for the final proctored exams that come at a fee and attend in-person at designated centres on specified dates.
• It has been developed cooperatively by MHRD (Ministry of Human Resource Development) and AICTE (All India Council for Technical Education) with the help of Microsoft.
• Nine national coordinators are appointed to manage the course content such as AICTE, NPTEL, UGC, CEC, NCERT, NIOS, IGNOU, IIMB and NITTTR.

The following decisions were taken at the meeting:

• It was decided that all the 1900 SWAYAM Courses and 60000 SWAYAM PRABHA videos would be translated into ten regional languages and made available to the students so that more benefit can be derived from the same.
• It was decided to decentralize the task of translation to the National Coordinators, who may be allowed to use all possible services like students, government or private agencies, available technology to undertake translation of content.
• UGC has been asked to prepare guidelines regarding online and Distance learning guidelines to increase Gross Enrolment Ratio.

About SWAYAM Prabha

• It is a group of 32 DTH channels devoted to telecasting of high-quality educational programmes on 24x7 basis using the GSAT-15 satellite.
• The channels are uplinked from BISAG, Gandhinagar.
• The contents are provided by NPTEL, IITs, UGC, CEC, IGNOU, NCERT and NIOS and the INFLIBNET Centre maintains the web portal.

The DTH Channels shall cover the following:

• Higher Education: Curriculum-based course contents at post-graduate and under-graduate level covering diverse disciplines such as arts, science, commerce, performing arts, social sciences and humanities, engineering, technology, law, medicine, agriculture, etc. All courses would be certification-ready in their detailed offering through SWAYAM, the platform being developed for offering MOOCs courses.
• School education (9-12 levels): modules for teacher's training as well as teaching and learning aids for children of India to help them understand the subjects better and also help them in preparing for competitive examinations for admissions to professional degree programmes.
• Curriculum-based courses that can meet the needs of life-long learners of Indian citizens in India and abroad.
• Assist students (class 11th & 12th) prepare for competitive exams.

The following decisions were taken at the meeting:

• Possibility of redistribution of channels to match available content, and viewership shall be explored.
• It was also decided to enrich the content in SWAYAM PRABHA by collecting content from whom so ever willing to contribute the same under Vidya Daan Programme. 
• Subject expert committees shall be formed by each NC to approve the content received, before getting it uploaded on SWAYAM Prabha
• The broadcast over DTH will be popularized through all available channels, including radio, social media.
• The video content on SWAYAM Prabha shall be mapped to curriculum, and the academic calendar.
• For the translation of content of four IIT-PAL channels, CBSE, NIOS shall provide all assistance to IIT-Delhi. This matter shall be followed up by JS (IEC) in MHRD.