Go Sanctions Go

Go Sanctions Go

Rate of increase in the number of Covid-19 positive cases and huge number of deaths in the whole world and our inability to contain it, speaks about the fragility of humans and at the same time poses a question on the mere existence of human race. Virus has trigged unprecedented crises in human history. In these tough times, lucky are those who have only this particular issue to fight with. Country like Iran, which is among one of the worst hit regions, has to fight with the pandemic on one hand and has to deal with the stubbornness of the Trump and his allies on the other. US, first of all pulled out from a UN endorsed nuclear deal between Iran and P5+1 nations and later continued to impose more sanctions on Iran, thereby proved that they are not reliable partners, exactly what Iran’s supreme leader Ayatullah Ali Khamanai has called them several times so far.  As the virus spread over Iran and started to show its aggression, those, whose conscience is still live, raised voice and urged the world community to ease the sanctions on Iran. Some sections of the media also played its role and showed their concern. Now that Corona Virus has spread into West and US, global media has shifted its focus to western world. It has resulted in US escaping the criticism for continuing its deadly sanctions against Iran and its people at this crucial time. United Nations leadership recently called for rolling back of sanctions, declaring sanctions as counterproductive for  containing the spread of the corona virus. “I am encouraging the waiving of sanctions imposed on countries to ensure access to food, essential health supplies, and COVID-19 medical support. This is the time for solidarity not exclusion,” UN Secretary-General António Guterres wrote in a letter to the G-20 economic powers. “Let us remember that we are only as strong as the weakest health system in our interconnected world”, said Guterres.  Iran‘s foreign minister, Mr. Zarif, in his letter to UN urged an end to illegal sanctions. Zarif said, “despite Iran’s scientific capabilities and the commitment that the country’s health system has shown to the fight against the coronavirus outbreak, the U.S. sanctions on the sale of medicine, medical equipment and humanitarian supplies is a serious obstacle to the efforts to control the spread of COVID-19 in the country”. US, however, has claimed that humanitarian aid including food and medicine has been exempted from sanctions. But the fact is that companies have been unwilling to do business with Iran, and banks have not been able or willing to process payments fearing to face secondary sanctions from US. China has also urged the United States to lift sanctions on Iran immediately amid the country’s response to the corona virus outbreak. Michelle Bachelet, the UN high commissioner for human rights, also said  “in a context of global pandemic, impeding medical efforts in one country heightens the risk for all of us.” She further added, “At this crucial time, both for global public health reasons, and to support the rights and lives of millions of people in these countries, sanctions should be eased or suspended”. In addition to above, Russia, Pakistan and various other medical organizations and rights groups urged the Trump administration to lift sanctions against the Islamic Republic.  Unmoved by the all-round condemnation and outcry, US instead responded with a message to Iran saying “Corona virus won’t save you from sanctions”. No wonder Zarif described this uncivilized behavior of United States as an act of “medical terrorism”. As expected Iran, inspite of all odds has again demonstrated it's ability and resolve to withstand the challenge. Even under pressing sanctions, Iran has been able to develop rapid test kits, increase its face mask production by many folds, conduct successful stem cell research to counter coronavirus and more recently on 4^th April, 2020, unveiled its indigenous and state of art Artificial Intelligence based corona virus diagnosis system, thereby proved its metal again. US and it's allies need to see the writing on the wall and cash on the opportunity created by COVID-19 and ease sanctions which have already proved futile in cowing down Iran. It is high time to engage with Iran rather than pushing it to wall. Hope the sanity prevails and COVID-19 threat paves way for new world order based on Sincerity, equality and compassion.

Afaq Alam Khan

Learning: The MOOCs Way

Learning: The MOOCs Way

Online education has been there for a long time now. But since the day it took the shape in the form of MOOCs, it has started gaining acceptance everywhere like never before and is fast engulfing every country in the world. This trend which took birth at MIT, in United States and is already on the way to become mainstream in that part of the world has hit our shores as well and is all set to have direct effect on the lives of those working in higher education sector. MOOC stands for Massive Open Online Courses and are usually aimed at large scale participation, either free or at subsidised costs. Features of MOOC course like Anytime, Anyone, Anywhere has made these courses the preferred choice of learners. Today thousands of MOOC courses designed by top most universities and educational institutes of the world, hosted on the platforms like CourseEra, Edx, Udacity etc are challenging universities in their ability to sustain themselves through traditional classroom system; particularly when government policies favour "staking" of MOOC courses into a Degree.

Sensing the urgency in the matter, Ministry of Human Resource & Development, Government of India launched an indigenous platform SWAYAM to host MOOC courses designed and developed within the country. SWAYAM is an acronym for Study Webs of Active learning for Young Aspiring Minds. As per MHRD report published in December, 2018; One thousand six hundred MOOC courses developed by different National Coordinators have already been hosted on SWAYAM platform, 90 universities in the country have already agreed to transfer the credits for the course done through SWAYAM, more than 39 Lakh have enrolled themselves in different courses and 60000 students have completed the course on SWAYAM.

 As per UGC Credit Transfer Framework for online learning through SWAYAM- 2016, a student pursuing a programme in a university can earn up to 20% credits through MOOC courses hosted on SWAYAM, thereby reserving 80% weightage to the traditional student-teacher classroom interaction and no university shall refuse any student for credit mobility for the course earned through SWAYAM. UGC has also come up with " Annual Refresher Programme in Teaching" (ARPIT), through which Refresher courses are offered through a MOOC course hosted on SWAYAM. UGC has decided to treat MOOC  course under ARPIT program as equivalent to one refresher course. Now a faculty member need not to travel a long distances to undergo a refresher program if he finds one suitable to him on ARPIT. In addition to the financial support to the faculty members who are involved in design and development of MOOC courses, an attractive score in API has also been approved. Needless to mention that universities encouraging MOOC courses earn more points in NIRF rankings. 

To get benefited from this initiative of MHRD, a university can contribute in two ways firstly as a Parent Institute and secondly as a Host Institute. As a Parent institute, University has to encourage  students to register for the free courses hosted on SWAYAM, particularly those courses for which there is a dearth of faculty. The SWAYAM platform is accompanied by a mobile application for easier access to the courses. At the end of the course, examinations are conducted by National Testing Agency (NTA) either online or through pen & paper mode. As a Host institute, faculty members need to come forward and take an initiative to design and develop a quality  MOOC course on varied subjects  in a four quadrant format which can be hosted on SWAYAM platform. Courses hosted on SWAYAM are not real time which makes it suitable for this place where internet connectivity is not guaranteed all the time. 

With a futuristic schemes in higher education like National Academic Credit Bank (NACB), which UGC envisions to rollout by 2021, a student will be will able to join in one university , pursue the courses in different universities and earn a degree from another university. In this scenario credits earned through MOOC courses hosted on SWAYAM become more meaningful and have the highest  potential to integrate with the scheme.