To better prepare students for professional life; to provide digital learning, life skills

Bengaluru: The Karnataka Higher Education Department yesterday inked an agreement with IT major Infosys, which will offer 12,000 courses free of cost.

The Memorandum of Understanding (MoU), to better prepare students for their professional life, was signed between Infosys and the Kerala State Higher Education Council (KSHEC), Visvesvaraya Technological University (VTU) and all the Public Universities in the State.

The MoU was signed in the presence of Higher Education Minister Dr. C.N. Ashwathnarayan at Vidhana Soudha. Gopalakrishna Joshi, Executive Director, KSHEC and Tirumala Aarohi, Head, Infosys Education and Training Department, exchanged the MoU.

All the Vice-Chancellors of 24 Public Universities including Bangalore, Mangalore and Mysore who were present were also later involved in exchanging the copies of the MoU.

Speaking on the occasion, Dr. Ashwathnarayan said: “The Infosys Springboard platform developed by using modern technology has 12,300 courses to offer free of cost. These can be used by students starting from Class 6 up to those who are pursuing Ph.D and can be learnt online. In addition, this will also provide the eminence of more than 800 educational experts to the students and faculty of the Higher Education and also to the faculty.”

For this purpose, Infosys has spent Rs. 100 crore he stated and lauded the company for the same. The courses on Springboard will help varsities update their syllabus. This also enables to import of better teaching techniques to faculty, the Minister opined.

Further, he emphasised that Colleges and Universities should include the experts involved in developing the Springboard platform in their board of studies. The platform will enable to teach emerging and digital skills to students. This allows for the conduct of virtual classes and also for evaluating students online.

Tirumala Aarohi said that relevant training will be given to the faculty by knowing the needs through the Springboard. He added that an annual plan will be developed for this purpose. This will help to prepare our faculty as per global standards.

“Our aim is to provide digital learning and life skills to over one crore youth by 2025 and our focus is youngsters between the age group of 10 to 22 years. There are over 23 lakh youngsters learning across the country through Springboard. Those interested can visit https://infyspringboard.onwingspan.com/web/en/login.