Taking forward its efforts to bring reforms in the education sector, the Andhra Pradesh government Thursday signed a Memorandum of Understanding with edX, an e-learning platform that provides online courses from top universities.

Education Minister B Satyanaryana said, “edX shall interact with Andhra Pradesh Higher Education Department and evolve a road map for amplifying existing university courses with edX online courses designed by the best universities of the world for the students of Andhra Pradesh.”

edX is a world leading e-learning platform that offers online courses from 170 + top ranking institutions of the world, including 37 out of the top 50 universities, and top four of the world namely MIT, Harvard, Oxford, and Cambridge.

edX is powered by Open edX, a world leading open source platform which will enable Andhra Pradesh Higher Education department to freely use the open source platform.

Chief Minister Y S Jagan Mohan Reddy said, “The methodology of implementation of the objective shall be evolved,” said Satyanaryana. edX founder, chief platform officer, MIT Professor and Padmashree Awardee Anant Agarwal will advise the Andhra Pradesh Higher Education Department (HED) on the curriculum design, creation of new verticals, revamping of existing courses and innovation in education for reskilling and upskilling.”

He added, “The Andhra Pradesh government and edX will jointly launch new technologies and pedagogies for teaching and learning. edX may work with Andhra Pradesh HED to explore training and learning needs, identify learning gaps and curate MOOCs (minors and skill development courses) from within edX’s existing online campus subscription catalogue with respect to the requirement of the current curriculum of both professional and conventional degree programmes.”

The Andhra Pradesh government has been at the forefront of implementing numerous reforms in the education sector. Focus has been given in providing quality education to students in the post matric level by schemes such as Jagananna Vidya Deevena (full fee reimbursement to the accounts of a student’s mother), Jagananna Vasati Deevena (hostel and boarding fee reimbursement upto Rs 20,000) and Jagananna Videshi Vidya Deevena (financial aid to students belonging to the SC, ST, OBC and minority communities).

In addition, changes in curriculum by introducing online verticals, mandatory internships, four-year degree courses and job-oriented courses have brought a significant improvement in the number of placements across the colleges.

The Chief Minister said that to make the children of Andhra Pradesh global students, there is a need to keep abreast of the latest developments in the world.

“Artificial intelligence, Machine Learning, Data Mining, Data analytics, Virtual Reality, Augmented Reality, Cloud computing, Quantum computing etc are some examples of emerging technologies in the world. For students to learn the entire subject range, there is a need to improve the teaching methodology and content available. Having realised the shortage of well-trained faculty and quality content to make the students future ready and global citizens, there is a need to evolve a road map towards achieving the objective. There is an exigent need to take a deep dive into the education sector and make available the best verticals to the students. It is envisaged to ensure teaching of the students of Andhra Pradesh by the best faculty of the highest ranked universities/institutions in the world,” Reddy said.