Unprecedented boost to digital education

Nirmala Sitharaman announced that a digital university will be established to provide access to students across the country for world-class quality universal education with personalised learning experience at their doorstep While presenting the Union Budget for the year 2022-23, Union Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman on Tuesday announced that skilling programmes and partnership with the industry will be reoriented to promote continuous skilling avenues, sustainability and employability.

The national skill qualification framework will be aligned with dynamic industry needs for which 750 virtual labs and 75 skilling e-labs will be set up for simulated learning.

"A Digital Ecosystem for Skilling and Livelihood – the DESH-Stack eportal – will be launched. This portal aims to empower citizens to skill, reskill or upskill through online training," Sitharaman said. It will also provide API-based trusted skill credentials, payment and discovery layers to find relevant jobs and entrepreneurial opportunities.

The Minister announced that startups will be promoted to facilitate 'Drone Shakti' through varied applications and for 'Drone-as-a-Service' (DaaS) in select ITIs across all states. Nirmala Sitharaman announced that a digital university will be established to provide access to students across the country for world-class quality universal education with personalised learning experience at their doorstep.

This will be made available in different Indian languages and ICT formats. The digital university will be built on a networked "hub-spoke" model, with the hub building cutting-edge ICT expertise. The best public universities and institutions in the country will collaborate as a network of hub-spokes. "The university will be built on our networked hub and spoke model with the hub building cutting edge ICT expertise," she said. Education in this university will be made available in different Indian languages and ICT formats. "The best public universities and institutions in our country will collaborate as a network of hub and spoke," she said. She said that a majority of the affected children were from government schools and the Centre recognises the need to impart supplementary teaching and to build a resilient mechanism for education delivery. "For this purpose one class -- one TV channel programme of PM e-Vidya will be expanded from 12 to 400 TV channels," Sitharaman said.

She added that this will enable all states to provide supplementary education in regional languages for classes 1 to 12.