Question : e-Learning

(a) whether it has become difficult to provide access to education to all in a country like India
which has a large population and higher dropout rate of children and if so, the details thereof;
(b) whether the Government is considering to promote e-learning through electronic medium
besides open schools and universities and correspondence courses;
(c) if so, the details thereof;
(d) the total expenditure incurred on e-learning during the last three years, State/ UT-wise;
(e) whether the Government is considering to launch e-learning in all the universities and
schools of the country;
(f) if so, the time by which e-learning method is likely to be launched in all the universities
and schools of the country; and
(g) if not, the reasons therefor?

MINISTER OF HUMAN RESOURCE DEVELOPMENT
(SHRI RAMESH POKHRIYAL ''NISHANK'')
(a) to (g): The Right of Children to Free and Compulsory Education, 2009, mandates the
appropriate Government to provide free and compulsory elementary education to every child
of the age 6 to 14 years in a neighbourhood school.
In pursuance of Section 6 of the Act, the Central RTE Rules has notified the area or
limits of neighbourhood as one kilometre, within which a primary school and 3 kilometre
within which an upper primary school, has to be established. The States have notified area or
limits of their neighbourhood norms in their state RTE Rules, factoring in their State specific
condition, for opening of schools. As reported by States/UTs in their Annual Work Plan,
2018-19, 97.15% of habitations in the country are covered by primary schools and 96.49% of
habitations are covered by upper primary schools. The habitations that remain uncovered are
mostly small or sparsely populated in difficult areas where opening of school is not feasible
for which there is a provision of giving transport and escort facility and opening of residential
schools and hostels. Also, 88.24% of habitations have access to secondary schools with a
distance of 5 km.
Ministry of Human Resource Development is administering a programme ‘National
Mission on Education through Information and Communication Technology’ (NMEICT) to
leverage the potential of ICT to make the best quality contents accessible to all learners in the
country, free of cost, which, inter-alia, includes ‘Study Webs of Active Learning for Young
Aspiring Minds'' (SWAYAM), SWAYAM Prabha, National Digital Library of India (NDL),
Spoken Tutorials, Free and Open Source Software for Education (FOSSEE), Virtual labs, e-
Yantra and e-Shodh Sindhu.
Also, Study material developed by NCERT in the form of e-Resources (audio, video
interactive etc.) has been shared with stake holders through SWAYAM, e-Pathshala, web
portal and mobile application National Repository of Open Educational Resources (NROER).
Further, the Digital Infrastructure for Knowledge Sharing (DIKSHA) platform
launched in 5th September, 2017 is presently used by CBSE, NCERT and several States and
UTs to host e-content. It has inbuilt capability to leverage machine learning, artificial
intelligence and data to provide needed guidance and personalization for the needs of
teachers and students.
The last three years Expenditure details are as under:
<pre>

Rs. In Crore
Sl No. Name of Scheme 2016-2017 2017-18 2018-19
1. SWAYAM 61.00 63.00 117.27
2. NMEICT
(including SWAYAM Prabha)
146.44 108.03 113.04
3. National Digital Library (NDL) 9.71 10.00 7.00
4. e-Shodh Sindhu 235.00 145.12 199.57
5. DIKSHA 2.91
Source PMS
</pre>
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