The National Programme on Technology Enhanced Learning is an Indian
national initiative co-ordinated by the Indian Institute of Technology (IIT) Madras with partners from other IITs and the Indian Institute of Science, in Bangalore. The programme is funded by the Ministry of Human Resource Development, Government of India, and is geared towards providing detailed course content, free of charge, to academic institutions and individuals in all branches of engineering, science, technology, management and humanities subjects which form a part of higher education (i.e., beyond Grade 12). At the end of 2012, it is hoped that all major undergraduate and a number of post-graduate curricula of most engineering and technology programmes will be covered with the availability of 40-lecture (or equivalently, one semester long) course content for more than 1,000 courses. The programme will supplement this activity by providing hands-on training to young teachers on curricula and pedagogy. Efforts are also being made to answer users’ queries, to provide supplementary materials, online quizzes and assignments, and to collect user feedback so as to update course content on a continuous basis. It is also proposed to set up a virtual technical institution for granting online certificates and degree/diploma programmes in the future.

Keywords

continuous open learning · distance education · higher education · IIT · India · NPTEL · professional education