In news
In the context of COVID-19 related disruption of schooling, DIKSHA makes it possible for all states/UT’s to enable learning/education at home through innovative state programs
About DIKSHA (Digital Infrastructure for Knowledge Sharing) portal
- DIKSHA (Digital Infrastructure for Knowledge Sharing) is a national platform for school education
- DIKSHA was developed based on the core principles of open architecture, open access, open licensing diversity, choice and autonomy as outlined in the Strategy and Approach Paper for the National Teacher Platform released by the former Hon’ Minister for Human Resources Development Shri Prakash Javdekar in May, 2017
- DIKSHA is a unique initiative which leverages existing highly scalable and flexible digital infrastructures while keeping teachers at the center.
- It is an initiative of the National Council of Educational Research and Training (Ministry of Education, Govt of India)
- It is built considering the whole teacher’s life cycle – from the time student teachers enroll in Teacher Education Institutes (TEIs) to after they retire as teachers.
- DIKSHA is built on open source technology, made in India and made for India, which incorporates internet scale technologies and enables several use-cases and solutions for teaching and learning. DIKSHA is built using MIT licensed open source technology called Sunbird, which is a digital infrastructure for learning and is designed to support multiple languages and solutions and offers over a 100 micro services as building blocks for the development of platforms and solutions.
- DIKSHA, as mentioned earlier, is available for the use of all states and UTs of India as well as CBSE and NCERT
- DIKSHA can be accessed by learners and teachers across the country and currently supports 18+ languages and the various curricula of NCERT, CBSE and SCERTs across India.
- The platform is being leveraged and developed for school education, foundational learning programs and to support inclusive learning for underserved and differently-abled communities of learners and teachers.
Benefits
- DIKSHA will serve as National Digital Infrastructure for Teachers.
- All teachers across the nation will be equipped with advanced digital technology.
- Diksha portal will enable, accelerate and amplify solutions in the realm of teacher education.
- It will aid teachers to learn and train themselves for which assessment resources will be available.
- It will help teachers to create training content, profile, in-class resources, assessment aids, news, and announcement and connect with the teacher community.
Who can use it?
States, government bodies and even private organizations, can integrate DIKSHA into their respective teacher initiatives based on their goals, needs, and capabilities. They can use DIKSHA’s features to create:
- In-class resources
- Teacher training content
- Assessment aids
- Teacher profile
- News and announcement
- Teacher community
These features have emerged from consultations with multiple state governments, NGOs and more than 30 public and private organizations, who have collaborated in contributing to DIKSHA.
What does the platform provide?
It envisages to provide:
- Teacher training courses (example – training on learning outcomes, CCE, etc.)
- Teaching resources such as lesson plans, concept videos, worksheets, mapped to curriculum
- Assessments for teachers, to find out their strengths and areas of improvement
Teachers will be able to access this material offline on their smartphones, tablets and other devices anytime and anywhere. Material will be contextualised to local languages as well as mapped to the curriculum.
DIKSHA Verticles
- Teacher Profile & Registry: Functionality to create State-level DIKSHA user profiles, with users having the flexibility to on-board anonymously, using their preferred login credentials as well as by State
- Teaching and Learning Content: Curriculum linked resources for teachers and students in an interactive and engaging format
- Content Creation Platform: Tools and platforms for creating and uploading content
- Teacher Professional Development: Contextualized digital courses for supporting teachers in their professional development
- School Leadership Development: Repository of relevant courses to help principals, vice-principals, and head of schools improve their leadership skills
- Assessments: Resources and tools for teachers, students for school-level assessments
- Innovation & Innovative Pedagogy: Sharing of best practices and experiences amongst teacher community through case studies, research papers, and innovative pedagogical practices
