You may not know about NPTEL (National Programme on Technology Enhanced Learning) — people not associated with engineering education usually don’t — but this education portal has over 470 million views and 1.73 million enrolled students from across the world. Started by seven IITs (Bombay, Delhi, Kanpur, Kharagpur, Madras, Guwahati and Roorkee) along with the Indian Institute of Science (IISc) in Bangalore as a free education channel on YouTube, the idea behind it was putting recordings of lectures by IIT and IISc professors online so that students — both undergraduate and postgraduate — across the globe could access quality education.

However, no one imagined in 2003 that just 16 years down the line, NPTEL would be one of the most accessed massive online open course (MOOC) portals, alongside big global players such as Coursera, EdEx and Udacity.

While analysing its huge subscriber base, NPTEL authorities recently came across one Pamir Roy almost by happenstance. The 19-year-old, it was found, had already finished 14 courses at NPTEL in the last two years. Based at Silchar in Assam, Pamir is now a second-year student at the North Eastern Regional Institute of Science (NERIS) in remote Nirjuli in Arunachal Pradesh.

“I took these courses primarily because I am interested in the study of artificial intelligence (AI) and data science, the most in-demand fields of modern technology. These courses helped me acquire a thorough knowledge in the fields and prepared me for further research.” He was inspired to take the courses by seniors at his college. Pamir has also done courses from Coursera and Udacity but rates NPTEL highest in the MOOC domain.

Professor Adrijit Goswami, a co-ordinator of NPTEL, is not surprised by Pamir’s experience with the online education platform. The dean of continuing education and professor of mathematics, IIT Kharagpur, says, “The content of NPTEL is developed by renowned faculty members of the IITs and IISc. The courses are most beneficial for students of colleges that don’t have enough teachers; in fact, teachers and working professionals too can benefit from the courses.” He points out that AICTE, the apex body of technical education in India, has made it mandatory for all engineering colleges to cover 15 to 20 per cent of the undergraduate engineering course syllabus through NPTEL. “Teachers can not only upgrade their knowledge by doing these courses, but the certificates from NPTEL can also help them get promotions,” Goswami adds. Some courses cover the Graduate Aptitude Test in Engineering (GATE) syllabus too.

Animesh Deb of Tripura is one of the candidates who qualified GATE last year with support from NPTEL. He also landed a job in the IT firm, Wipro, soon after. Animesh, who completed BTech in civil engineering this year from NERIS, prefers NPTEL to Coursera or EdEx because the fee is nominal. “I had to pay just about Rs 1,000 for the examination and a certificate,” he says. He stresses that the discussion forum and faculty support at NPTEL is much more prompt and active compared to other online courses. He did 11 courses from NPTEL. Among these, eight

were on computer science, two on civil engineering and one on management. He says, “I couldn’t learn C++ [a computer programming language] well enough in college. The NPTEL course helped me gain in-depth knowledge in the language.”

Animesh is not the only one, many engineering students are learning the basics of programming languages from the online platform. Abhishek Acharya, a BTech student of computer science and engineering at RCC Institute of Engineering in Calcutta, picked up Python and C from NPTEL. “I did not know anything about Python until I took the courses. They helped me acquire in-depth knowledge of the subject and also gain an edge in the competitive industry.”

In the current session, NPTEL is offering 360 courses. Among the 17.31 lakh who have registered for or subscribed to the courses are students from 18 countries including the US, the UK, Australia and several African countries. Apart from engineering and science, courses in humanities and law are also available on NPTEL.

Recruiters and industry representatives too have begun considering these online courses invaluable. Says Kalyan Kar, former managing director at IT firm Acclaris Business Solutions, “Online learning is becoming the new normal in the modern era. Three aspects — it is interactive, personalised and decentralised — make it popular.” According to him, one learns a lot from peers in the discussion forums — this is learning through constant interaction. “You can learn at your own pace —you can either go ahead of the rest or take the time to ruminate. This is personalised education,” he adds.

So if you want to stay ahead of the race, get as many online courses as possible under your belt alongside your college degree.