India all set to gets its first digital university’

Lucknow: India will soon have its first digital university.
This university will function completely in a digital mode, be it imparting education through videos, conducting examination, evaluation, results, degree and all academic work online.
This was shared by Prof Jagat Bhushan Nadda, director, Consortium for Educational Communication (CEC), one of the Inter University Centres set up by the University Grants Commission.
Nadda was in the city for a two-day 26th CEC-UGC Educational Film Festival organized by CEC to be held at LU's Malviya Hall on Wednesday.
Talking to TOI, Nadda said, "At present, there are around 1,200 universities and around 50,000 colleges in the country. This happened in the last 75 years. The gross enrollment ratio (GER) in higher education institutions at present is 26.7% or so. The govt is very serious about increasing this GER to 50% by 2035."
He said that to attain the target, we don't expect another 1,200 universities to come up in the next 10 years or more colleges to emerge.
"The only way we can address this issue and make education available to every student in the country, even to those who are in the remotest parts of the country or those who cannot afford formal education, is through digital education," Nadda said.
"We have developed courses so that they can be used for the digital university as well, which is the aspiration of the govt of India. So far, we developed around 750 courses. We developed some courses in which a student need not come to the university and can study, appear for proctored examinations, and get results and degrees completely online," said the director.
He explained why digital learning or a digital university is essential because any big institution in the country is running short of faculty, infrastructure, or resources.
"A digital university or CEC gives an opportunity to learn whatever one wants through digital means," he said.
Meanwhile, during the film festival, around 18 documentaries will be screened at LU's Malviya Hall on Thursday and Friday.