Proposal

on

NPTEL Exam Fee waiver

for

CSR Support
NATIONAL PROGRAMME ON TECHNOLOGY ENHANCED LEARNING (NPTEL)

The National Programme on Technology Enhanced Learning (NPTEL) was initiated by seven IITs
(Bombay, Delhi, Kanpur, Kharagpur, Roorkee, Guwahati and Madras) along with Indian Institute
of Science, Bangalore (IISc) in 2003 under the Ministry of Human Resources Development, Govt.
of India, for the creation of web and video courses in various disciplines of engineering, basic
sciences, management and humanities. The idea was to give access to teaching material created
by faculty of premier institutes to anyone who has an internet connection and a system and also
to make available the best quality of content and education available to anyone who is interested
in learning.

ACHIEVEMENTS OF NPTEL:

In the last 18 years, NPTEL has been able to reach a large number of learners and was able to
create a huge impact. A summary is given below.
● 44,000 hours of video content is available with subtitles
● More Than 1 Billion Views from learners.
● NPTEL channels on YouTube have more than 3.1 million subscribers
● NPTEL was able to offer 2900+ courses
● Partnered with 4000+ colleges across India as SWAYAM-NPTEL local Chapters
NPTEL ONLINE CERTIFICATION

NPTEL began offering certification to students for participating in open online courses (which
consist of pre-recorded video lectures, lecture notes and assignments all of which are online) in
March 2014.

Through this online portal, courses of 4, 8, and 12 weeks duration in various engineering
disciplines, sciences, humanities and management that include relevant exposure to tools and
technologies are currently being offered by NPTEL. We have received more than 1.2 crore
enrollments for various courses in NPTEL till date. The certification is an optional part of the open
online courses which is a confirmation of the student’s participation and performance in the open
online course. Since the certification exam is designed to be an in person proctored examination,
it involves a registration fee of Rs.1,000 per exam to cover the cost of exam logistics and
invigilation. We have received 16.8 lakh enrollments for the semester (Jan-May 21) and 2.4 lakh
learners have registered for the in-person proctored exams.
NPTEL EXAM FEE WAIVER INITIATIVE

When a survey was done among students who had scored well in the assignments during the
course but who had not registered for the certification exam, a large percentage of them quoted
the fee of Rs 1000 being too high to pay due to the economic background of their family and their
availing educational loans to pay for the college. In continuation of this objective of aiding students
from economically weak backgrounds to complete the course and get a certificate from the IITs
which might help them with better employability or higher education, the fee waiver support
request for Rs 500/- per candidate per course was implemented. If the student’s financial
concerns are reduced, they can focus more on studying and learning, which can lead to better
retention of knowledge, which in turn, can increase their chances at the job front. Hence the
possibility of some external agency instituting some kind of scholarships that enable students to
overcome the situation of the fee being a hurdle was thought of. This would be distributed to the
students on a merit cum means basis.
The students who are our primary users and benefit from these certification courses are from all
over India. As enrolment and exam registrations are going stronger with each semester, the
requirement of funds for fee waiver funds is also increasing. Due to limited CSR funds, NPTEL
has introduced a criterion as to who can apply for such fee waivers. Fee waiver approval was
given for only one course registration and not for multiple course exams by a student. Also, fee
waiver applications from colleges in Tier 1 cities were considered only if there was a strong
justification for the need. As of today, NPTEL was able to provide exam fee waiver to more than
1.2 lakh students.

We have around 3 lakh students who are writing NPTEL certification every semester. We are
planning to give exam fee support to 10% (30,000) of the students. The proposed budget for the
fee waiver is given below for the next 6 semesters.

BUDGET FOR FEE WAIVER PER SEMESTER

No. of students Total number of Fee waiver amount Total

30,000 1,80,000 500 per student INR 9,00,00,000

Administrative Overhead (5% for Project Cost) INR 45,00,000

Total Cost INR 9,45,00,000

Admin Overhead: 5% of the project cost is allocated towards costs that will include employing
personnel to handle this people-intense activity and put in place the governing processes as
well as maintaining the detailed reports for each activity.

Employee Engagement:
As part of the NPTEL Project, there is a lot of scope for employee engagement. Employees of
the CSR partner can participate in the following ways:
● Deliver Live Lectures on various technical topics or in the area of soft skills, job
readiness, etc.
● Conduct Mock Interviews for NPTEL Toppers and NPTEL Stars.
● Conduct Programming Sessions or Technical Quiz Competitions to the students.
Employees participating in the above activities will be given due recognition by NPTEL, IIT
Madras for all their efforts.

FEE WAIVER IMPACT - CASE STUDY

'NPTEL has a wide reach to remote areas to ensure access to quality education to all motivated
learners'

One of the proud stories is about Mr. Rakesh Roshan who is currently working as an assistant
professor in the Physics department of Rajiv Gandhi University of Knowledge Technologies,
Basar which specifically caters to the education needs of the rural youth in Telangana. Mr.
Rakesh,NPTEL SPOC says with a sigh of relief that since his college caters primarily to the
education of rural youth, there are many students who are from economically backward and
downtrodden areas and are unable to pay NPTEL final exam fees. They are so poor that they
prefer to stay in college during vacations instead of going back home to have at least two proper
square meals a day as most of their parents are daily wage laborers whose income is insufficient
to provide even the basic requirement of food. As a result, paying 1000 rupees as final exam
registration fee is extremely difficult for most students. Many students actually give up on taking
final exams. After seeing their predicament, NPTEL has arranged a special provision to give them
a fee waiver of 50% and now they only have to pay 500 INR which most students are somehow
able to arrange by working part time or doing errands. Mr. Rakesh is very grateful to NPTEL for
proactively taking measures to help the deserving students in getting quality education from
premium institutes at a very affordable price. He lauds the NPTEL’s selfless objective and the
greater cause it stands for and gives sincere thanks for being able to be part of this greater cause
of providing quality education to the deserving students in the remotest areas of India. NPTEL is
able to support students with fee waiver with the support from CSR funding from various
corporates. He is very optimistic that in the coming years NPTEL is going to emerge as the biggest
online learning platform and the establishment of local chapters is achieving its stated objectives,
promoting quality education and enabling the accessibility of education to remotest corners of the
country. In short, NPTEL is bringing about a radical change in current education system; its
futuristic measures are imparting education

Time and again, the SPOCs of colleges where students have benefitted from fee waivers have
given feedback that, had it not been for the Aricent ,Capgemini and Tata technologies –Our CSR
partners, fee waiver, students would not have participated in the examination process. Many of
these students are coming from families of first-generation college graduates, families of daily
wage earners, farmers, cobblers, etc. And most of these students are already taking bank loans
for their education or are availing some kind of government scholarship scheme. Paying the full
exam fee per course might cause unusual financial hardship for the applicant’s family.