HYDERABAD: The popular open courseware of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) Boston that has over 1,500 courses are likely to be made available for the State students with relevant modifications.

The Andhra Pradesh State Council of Higher Education (APSCHE) Chairman K.C. Reddy said the MIT had agreed to share the courseware with the State and relevant changes would be made to make them suitable for local students and needs. "A team from MIT would visit the State in June for discussions and a final picture would emerge after that," he said.

Distance mode

Briefing reporters on his tour to United States along with some Vice-Chancellors recently, Prof. Reddy said these courses would be offered in the distance mode.

The idea was to offer inter-disciplinary courses, which are more relevant today.

He said the team visited Carniege Mellon University at Pittsburgh, Arizona State University, Phoenix, MIT at Boston and Georgia Tech at Atlanta and deliberated on various issues that can help strengthen our university system.

He said our university system needs to be restructured in such a way that it has to contribute for economic development taking into view the societal concerns.

Introduction of inter-disciplinary courses with flexibility to students to choose courses from different streams and usage of technology in providing quality academic material are some key issues that need to be viewed seriously.

As a first step in this direction, he said the APSCHE would do a study on the human capital needed for the State in various sectors for the next decade.

Based on that, the universities would be asked to restructure their courses to infuse the necessary skills among students. Similarly, selected teachers in the universities would be trained abroad in the emerging areas to prepare the students in the emerging academic areas.

Prof. Reddy said promising areas of employment like airlines, hospitality industry and tourism sector would be identified and universities would be asked to prepare capsule courses and offer them to create a pool of skilled workers. He said a workshop on inter-disciplinary courses would soon be conducted and the issue would be seriously deliberated. OU Vice-Chancellor Suleman Siddiqi was also present.

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