According to an official release on March 14, NIIT.tv – a disruptive innovation by Gurgaon headquartered NIIT Ltd – will now offer support to students pursuing BTech and MTech degree programmes by helping them with their curriculum and beyond, with an aim to improve employability and job readiness of engineering graduates in India. To this end, NIIT.tv has entered into a significant tie-up with SASTRA University, one of the leading universities in India, situated in Thanjavur, Tamil Nadu. Sessions delivered by expert faculty members of the university will be broadcast on NIIT.tv, an internet based learning portal. Programmes on Biomedical Nanotechnology, Biosensors, and Control Systems will be available in the initial stage and will soon expand to other engineering, management and law disciplines including coaching for competitive exams such as GATE, etc.
NIIT.tv is an internet TV portal that can be accessed on a computer, tablet or smartphone anytime, anywhere. It is a democratic digital learning initiative, backed by NIIT’s strong educational technology framework that was launched in October last year with an aim to bring high quality training from its classrooms to every digitally connected learner, for free, at any time, place, and language of their choice. The platform has received an overwhelming response with a total of 1,70,000 registered users from 142 countries. This has prompted NIIT to go beyond its programmes and provide support in other areas of higher education through strategic tie-ups.

As per a recent India Skill Report (ISR), compiled by Wheebox, PeopleStrong, LinkedIn and the Confederation of Indian Industry (CII), only 37 per cent of Indian graduates are employable. Educational institutions train millions of youngsters but corporates often complain that they do not get the necessary skill and talent required for a job. Therefore, it is essential that the engineering programme evolve and become more job-centric.

Between NIIT and SASTRA University, learners go through a complete multi-modal digital platform, experience free – tutorials, videos, live synchronous classes, e-books, interactivity, discussion forums, assessment, etc., thus making the combined ecosystem the richest, widest and the deepest learning environment for students pursuing BTech and MTech programmes. The two learning destinations will enable a more seamless experience for their respective users in their pursuit to find learning material that is more suited to the skill sets required by the industry.

Commenting on this significant tie-up, Udai Singh, chief strategy officer, NIIT Ltd. said, “We launched NIIT.tv with an aim to make available cutting-edge skill based training to every digitally connected citizen of India, by removing the four constraints of time, space, language and money. Through this significant tie-up with SASTRA University we will now use the platform to provide relevant skill sets to aspiring engineers and make them job ready for today’s competitive corporate environment.”

To start with, sessions on Biomedical Nanotechnology, Biosensors, and Control Systems will be available on NIIT.tv. These two programmes are aligned with the need to focus on emerging and niche areas while more programmes will be added from not only engineering clusters but also from management and law to make the engagement interdisciplinary and multidimensional keeping in mind the workplace demands.

Dr. S. Swaminathan, dean of Sponsored Research at SASTRA University and head of this new collaborative initiative, said, “SASTRA’s decision to leverage NIIT.tv’s platform wherein to engage with a wider cross-section of learners will disrupt conventional teaching-learning mechanisms in offering quality higher education, thereby making it inclusive, affordable and accessible. This initiative is also aligned with the Government of India’s digital drive and MHRD’s National MOOC mission.”

Since its launch in October 2015, NIIT.tv beta programme has progressed well. Based on feedback from learners and the growth of courses, the course catalog has been enhanced, an intuitive learning dashboard has been introduced, and the proven cloud courseware system from NIIT’s Cloud Campus has been integrated into NIIT.tv. Also the NIIT.tv Android app is now available on the Google Play Store for free download. A course configurator has also been created to enable independent authors and subject matter experts to offer their courses on NIIT.tv.

Over the last 34 years, NIIT has contributed extensively to the IT sector by training 35 million people in IT and other disciplines. As a socially responsible corporate citizen, NIIT with the launch of NIIT.tv is now committing to extend that experience and expertise to service the needs of India in many other sectors, across the entire social spectrum. With over 200 people working on education-technology, NIIT is the largest EdTech company in the country actively involved in offering technologically advanced learning products and services to its customers.