MHRD: Government unveiled ARPIT programme for higher education faculty

MHRD: Government unveiled ARPIT programme for higher education faculty: Details, Aim, Highlights

Union Ministry of Human Resource Development (MHRD) has launched new initiative Annual Refresher Programme In Teaching (ARPIT) for higher education faculty.

Annual Refresher Programme In Teaching (ARPIT) is a unique initiative of online professional development of 15 lakh higher education faculty.

About Annual Refresher Programme In Teaching (ARPIT)

ARPIT is a major and unique initiative of online professional development of 15 lakh higher education faculty using Massive Open Online Courses (MOOCs) platform SWAYAM. Under it 75 discipline-specific institutions are identified and notified as National Resource Centres (NRCs) in phase I.

These institutions will be tasked to prepare online training material with a focus on the latest developments in discipline, methodologies for transacting revised curriculum and pedagogical improvements. The courses will cover a diverse range of topics.

Each course will be 40-hour module with 20 hours of video content and 20 hours of non-video content. It will also have built-in assessment exercises and activities as part of the academic progression. There will be a terminal assessment either online or written examination at end of the course.

All faculties after successfully completing the online refresher course will be certified. All in-service teachers, irrespective of their subject and seniority will register and complete these refresher courses which will help them in career advancement.

ARPIT will be every year exercise and NRCs will continuously develop new refresher module in their earmarked discipline each year. The training materials will be uploaded and made available through SWAYAM.

In the inaugural year 2018 itself, NRCs are expected to cater to around 13 lakh faculty of total 15 lakh faculty in higher education.