Two degrees are better than one, specially when it comes to building a career.

On Saturday, Kolhan University organised an e-learning seminar where 26 college principals were introduced to Massive Online Open Courses (MOOCs) under the Centre’s Swayam programme.

The principals were asked to promote the ministry of human resource development’s initiative that offers free online courses to students, making it easier for them to get job placements after completing their education.

A session on IIT Spoken Tutorial was also introduced to colleges.

Vice-chancellor of Kolhan University Shukla Mahanty inaugurated the workshop.

Swayam Central is a free e-learning portal designed to achieve the three cardinal principles of education policy — access, equity and quality — by covering school, vocational, under-graduate, post-graduate, engineering and other professional courses.

The Spoken Tutorial Project, funded by the National Mission on Education through Information and Communication Technology, aims to teach programming languages, office tools, graphic and circuit design tools through audio-video tutorials.

Rudra Biswas, head of Spoken Tutorial, Jharkhand, attended the workshop as a resource person.

“The workshop was to tell college principals about the alternative methods of securing education online. A student can simultaneously opt for online courses to increase the chances of his employment in this highly competitive market,” said R.K. Karn, coordinator of placements and internal quality assessment cell of Kolhan University.

The university has decided to appoint one nodal officer in each college for propagation of the online platform and clearing the doubts that the students might face. A list of courses that students in Kolhan find interesting will be prepared before a proper counselling and awareness session starts.

“The need of the hour is to keep oneself updated. With so many options available in the era of the internet and online courses, students of our university must use the platform for a better profile before they appear for interviews,” Mahanty said.