The Ministry of Human Resource Development (HRD) has recently unveiled an innovative e-governance platform known as ‘SAMARTH Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP)’. This initiative falls under the National Mission of Education in Information and Communication Technology Scheme (NMEICT). This ground-breaking step aims at transforming how universities and higher education institutions function, making them more efficient through the use of technology.
Understanding SAMARTH ERP
SAMARTH ERP represents a secure, scalable, and evolutionary process automation engine principally designed for Universities and Higher Educational Institutions. As an open-source and open standard-enabled robust software, it promises to introduce new levels of efficiency to these institutions.
Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP) refers to a software type used to manage daily business activities encompassing areas such as accounting, procurement, project management, risk management and compliance, and supply chain operations. When applied to a University, ERP has the potential to significantly enhance management and administration.
The Implementation of SAMARTH ERP
Currently, SAMARTH ERP has been implemented at the National Institute of Technology (NIT), Kurukshetra. This institution finds itself as a participating unit under the World Bank-supported Technical Education Quality Improvement Program (TEQIP). The implementation aims to automate processes that would contribute to better information management through seamless access to and appropriate utilization of information. The platform is designed to cater to faculty, students, and staff at Universities/Higher Educational Institutions.
National Mission on Education via Information and Communication Technology
Launched in 2009, this mission is a ground-breaking initiative of the Ministry of HRD aiming to provide quality educational content to eligible learners across India. It seeks to harness the potential of ICT in the teaching and learning process for the benefit of learners in higher education institutions.
Initiatives Under the Program
Several notable initiatives have emerged under this program:
1. SWAYAM: This stands for ‘Study Webs of Active Learning for Young Aspiring Minds’, an integrated platform that offers online courses across various levels, from school to postgraduate.
2. SWAYAM Prabha: This initiative aims to provide 32 high-quality educational channels through DTH (Direct to Home) across the country on a 24/7 basis.
3. National Digital Library of India (NDL): This project is designed to develop a framework of a virtual repository of learning resources with a single-window search facility.
4. Spoken Tutorial: These are 10-minute long, audio-video tutorials, on open source software, aiming to improve the employment potential of students.
5. Free and Open Source Software for Education (FOSSEE): This is a project promoting the use of open source software in educational institutions.
6. Virtual Lab: This project aims to develop a fully interactive simulation environment for performing experiments, collecting data, and answering questions to assess the understanding of the knowledge acquired.
7. E-Yantra: A project for enabling effective education across engineering colleges in India on embedded systems and robotics.
Technical Education Quality Improvement Programme
This program was initiated in 2002 by the Ministry of HRD with the support of the World Bank. Its primary goal is to upscale the quality of technical education and enhance the capacities of institutions. Further, it aims to develop technical education as a key component for improving the quality of engineering education. The objective is to improve quality and equity in engineering institutions in focus states such as in low-income states.