The Indian Institute of Technology, Madras’ National Programme on Technology Enhanced Learning (NPTEL) has introduced an online portal to help students prepare for the Graduate Aptitude Test in Engineering (GATE).
According to a statement by IIT-Madras, the NPTEL GATE portal has been made freely accessible to all students, with CSR support from one of the country’s leading travel technology organisations. NPTEL is a joint initiative of the IITs and the Indian Institute of Science (IISc), a provider of free online certification courses. It has the world’s largest online repository of courses in basic sciences, engineering, and selected humanities and social sciences subjects.
The GATE is a national-level entrance exam that enables aspirants to seek admission for a master’s or PhD in IITs, IISc, or other premier institutions. Multiple PSUs recruit applicants based on the GATE score. Through the new portal, NPTEL aims to leverage its existing course contents on engineering and science domains from over 2,400-course portfolios, to provide video solutions, practice tests, and online assistance based on the GATE syllabus.
An official from IIT-Madras said that success in GATE enables both higher education and employment options. NPTEL is leveraging its content to guide candidates and create a level playing field by providing equal opportunities and easy access to information for people attempting the GATE exam.
Highlighting the unique aspects of the GATE portal, Ramkrishna Pasumarthy, NPTEL Coordinator, IIT-Madras, said, “In the NPTEL course discussion forums many learners would ask whether the course content would be enough to clear the GATE exam. The learners would request to solve GATE-related problems or provide some assistance in preparing for GATE. We then came up with the idea of creating a comprehensive one-stop platform, covering everything from concepts to tricks for cracking the GATE exam. We recently launched live mentoring sessions as well, enabling active learning for GATE aspirants.”
Nearly one million students will take the GATE exams next year and the portal strives to make the preparation journey easier for the aspirants. Supporting NPTEL’s GATE portal, which is freely available to all students from all backgrounds of the country is a step forward in the mission to accelerate positive social impact and create equal opportunities for students from underserved and diverse backgrounds. An official stated that the response from learners was good when the team piloted the portal.
The GATE preparation portal was launched during an event hosted by IIT-Madras PALS, a social initiative of pre-eminent alumni from IITs to augment engineering education by supporting students, faculty, and the management of engineering colleges in India since 2012.
E-learning websites and portals were a crucial part of the education sector during the pandemic and the government wants to take advantage of the digital benefits during the new normal as well. In July, the Department of Posts launched an online educational website to enhance the competencies of about 400,000 rural postal service and departmental employees by providing them access to standardised training content online or in a blended campus mode. The move would empower them to effectively deliver several government-to-citizen (G2C) services for enhanced customer satisfaction. The training videos and quizzes on the portal are available in 12 Indian languages.
As OpenGov Asia reported, after completing the final summative assessment, a system-generated course completion certificate will be sent to the trainee’s registered email ID automatically. Trainees can also submit feedback, ratings, and suggestions for all learning content.
