The University Grants Commission (UGC) has decided to offer more than 23,000 free UGC courses on its new higher education portal. These courses will constitute 23,000 postgraduate courses, 25 non-engineering SWAYAM courses, and 137 SWAYAM MOOC courses in emerging areas.
All of the abovementioned courses will be offered free of charge to enhance “the accessibility of higher education in remote parts of the country”, says UGC. The portal will be launched today – Friday (29 July) – and will include programmes in nine languages.
Free UGC Courses – Overview
| UGC Announcement | Free UGC Courses to Students via New Higher Education Portal |
| No. of Courses | More than 23,000 |
| Launch Date | 29 July 2022 |
| Included Programmes | Artificial Intelligence (AI) Cyber Security Biomolecules: Structure Function in Health & Disease Early Childhood Care & Education Animation & More |
| Language of Instruction | Hindi, Tamil, Bangla, Marathi, Gujarati, Malayalam, Telugu, Kannada, and English (nine in total ) |
| How to Access Courses? | Using Smartphones, Tablets, and Laptops/Computers By Visiting UGC Common Service Centres (CSC) and Special Purpose Vehicle (SPV) Centres |
| Portal Launched By | UGC and Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology (MeitY) |
| Portal Link | To be Updated |
Free UGC Courses – Important Details
- The UGC portal for the free courses will be launched as a part of the second anniversary of the National Education Policy 2020.
- To do so, the commission is working in collaboration with the Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology (MeitY).
- To offer the courses on the portal, the ministry will integrate the e-resources along with their Common Service Centres (CSC) and Special Purpose Vehicle (SPV) centres on the UGC free courses portal.
- UGC has designated 7.5 lakh CSCs and SPVs that will help impart these courses for the 2022-23 academic session.
- There are a total of 23,000 postgraduate courses, 137 SWAYAM MOOC courses, and 25 non-engineering SWAYAM courses on the free UGC course portal.
- The courses will be made available in nine languages – Hindi, Tamil, Bangla, Marathi, Gujarati, Malayalam, Telugu, Kannada, and English.
- Students can use these free UGC courses to gain knowledge about the subjects they are learning in college or to take upto 40% credit of the courses and store them in the Academic Bank of Credit (ABC) system.
- The commission will also offer degrees through its Digital University, when the university is launched. For now, students can earn 40% of their course credits from these free courses.
How to Access the Free UGC Courses?
Students can access the free UGC courses in two ways:
- Directly: Through their smartphones
- Indirectly: By visiting the Common Service Centres (CSC) and Special Purpose Vehicle (SPV) centres located near them.
How to Access Free UGC Courses Directly?
To do so, the candidate needs:
- A smartphone, tablet, or laptop/computer.
- A stable internet connection.
Once these two things are procured, the candidate can:
- Visit the free UGC courses portal
- Create a new account for free
- Get access to the courses
- Start studying
How to Access Free UGC Courses Indirectly?
This method can be used if the candidate does not have a smartphone and stable internet connection. In such a case, they can visit the nearest Common Service Centres (CSC) and Special Purpose Vehicle (SPV) centres located in their villages, towns, and cities.
Since there are 7 lakh 50 thousand of these centres around the country, candidates will be able to find them easily.
These centres are being managed by local entrepreneurs, also known as village level entrepreneurs (VLEs). The centres have computers and internet connectivity that students can benefit from. Although there are no charges for accessing the courses, the student has to pay a fee of Rs 20 per day (or Rs 500 per month) to use the computers and the internet facility at the centres. This is done so as to reimburse the VLEs efforts and cost of their infrastructure.
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