Take a look at every day essential events, concepts, terms, quotes, or events and brush up your knowledge. Here’s your nugget of wisdom for today.
Knowledge Nugget: YouTube-NCERT partnership
subject: Technology and Education
Why in the news?
YouTube recently announced a partnership with the National Council of Educational Research and Training (NCERT), the government advisory body on school education, to launch several YouTube channels over the next few months.
Key takeaways:
1. With the increase in demand for online educational content, the YouTube-NCERT partnership can be seen as a major development in online education. The channels launched in partnership will carry educational content related to the curriculum of students from classes 1 to 12. It will be available in 29 Indian languages, the company said.
2. YouTube has emerged as a hub for educational content in India, with videos related to Union Public Service Commission (UPSC) exams being the most popular category of such content on the platform.
3. The video-streaming giant wants to ensure that all types of exam preparation materials are available to users, including those related to competitive entrance exams in the country such as National Eligibility-cum-Entrance Test (NEET) and Joint Entrance Examination (JEE). Jonathan Katzman, YouTube Learning’s director of product management, said in an interview indianexpress.com.
“Our job is to democratize knowledge, enable any creator, whether they are new or established, to deliver the right learning content and work with partners like NCERT, NPTEL, and CBSE,” said Jonathan Kazman.
YouTube-NPTEL partnership
1. Apart from NCERT, YouTube is also launching 50 authentic courses in collaboration with National Program on Technology Enhanced Learning (NPTEL).
Jonathan Katzman, Director of Product Management at YouTube Learning. (Image source: YouTube)
2. Courses offered on NPTEL’s YouTube channels will focus on diverse subjects like Pure Science, Literature, Sports Psychology, and Rocket Propulsion.
3. “Through this initiative, a pathway has been created for anyone outside the IIT system to be able to take the course on NPTEL’s YouTube channels and then complete the online certification on the NPTEL-SWAYAM portal and get a certificate from the IITs.” More courses will be rolled out in the coming months, YouTube said in a blog post.
‘Key Concepts’ by Youtube
1. Notably, in addition to partnering with various educational bodies, YouTube is looking to make learning more accessible in India by offering artificial intelligence (AI)-powered features.
2. The platform is rolling out a new learning feature called Key Concepts in India. This feature uses AI to identify concepts included in a video and pull definitions of those concepts from the web. It can cover concepts related to different subjects like biology, physics and chemistry.
3. YouTube will also show users definitions and images from Google’s knowledge graph based on the video’s transcript and its metadata.
AI-generated quizzes by Youtube
To help students test their knowledge, the platform is introducing AI-generated quizzes. The quiz questions will be based on the topics of the videos the user has watched and will appear after the company has watched the video.
BEYOND the NUGGET: Swayam Portal and Swayam Plus Platform
1. SWAYAM (Active-Learning Study Webs for Young Aspiring Minds) is a program of the Government of India to achieve the three principles of education policy, access, equity and quality. It seeks to bridge the digital divide for students who have so far been left out of the digital revolution and unable to join the mainstream of the knowledge economy.
2. The program provides digital classes with the help of internet and satellite connectivity to remote corners of the country.
3. Swayam is essentially a portal designed as a solution to the problem of physical educational infrastructure and teachers’ difficult access to study materials and textbooks.
4. It facilitates hosting of all classroom taught courses from class 9 to post graduation, accessible anytime anywhere. All courses are interactive, prepared by the best teachers in the country and available, free to any student.
5. SWAYAM has the largest enrollment base today, with total enrollment increasing from 31 lakh in 2017 to over 72 lakh by the end of 2023, an IIT Madras statement said.
Swayam Plus Platform
1. In February 2024, the Central Government launched the ‘SWAYAM Plus’ platform to offer courses developed in collaboration with industry. Indian Institute of Technology, Madras (IIT Madras) will operate the ‘SWAYAM Plus’ platform.
2. The establishment of SWAYAM Plus seeks to increase the employability of both college students and lifelong learners. It will offer programs in sectors including manufacturing, energy, computer science and engineering, IT or ITES, management studies, healthcare, hospitality and tourism, apart from Indian knowledge systems.
3. Multilingual content, AI-enabled chatbot to assist students and credit recognition are some of the features of Swayam Plus platform.
(Source: Swayam Plus platform launched by Education Minister, What is Swayam?, ‘We want to make sure all types of exam preparation materials are available to users’: YouTube Learning Head Jonathan Katzman)
Write to us for your queries and suggestions roshni.yadav@indianexpress.com
Subscribe to us UPSC Newsletter And stay updated with last week’s news signals.
Stay updated with latest UPSC Articles by joining our Telegram channel – Indian Express UPSC Hub, and follow us Instagram and x.
Why should you buy our membership?
You want to be the smartest in the room.
You want access to our award-winning journalism.
You don’t want to be confused and misinformed.
Choose your subscription package