Mangaluru: Anant Agarwal, a Mangalorean and Ex-student of St Aloysius College here who is the CEO and founder of edx.org which is an online learning site where students can take free courses from the world’s best universities like MIT, Harvard, IIM Bangalore and IIT Bombay, has recently tied up with Bennett University in India which is a new Times of India initiative. Bennett has made a tie up with edX. edX will train Bennett in cutting edge approaches to teaching.
Bennett University has collaborated with edX, a non-profit massive open online course (Mooc), to offer its courses to students, giving them direct access to teaching from blue-chip global universities. The Greater Noida-based university, which swings open its gates this July, will adopt the flipped classroom model of teaching, allowing students to gain the basic information from edX videos before lectures and then re-purpose the class hour for higher order learning.
“We want to create a new kind of university that is unparalleled. A university without borders, a university that blends online learning and on-campus experience and gets the best of both. With this partnership, my hope is that Bennett University can become a beacon of what the future of university and what the future of education should look like,” said Anant Agarwal, CEO, edX, and now also a member of the International Advisory Council of Bennett varsity.
“Bennett University is being launched by The Times of India Group which is at the forefront of innovation in the media business. We are very excited about this partnership because edX is among the best in the world in online education,” said Vineet Jain, the Times Group MD. “We want to continue with the practice of innovation even in education, and we are going to provide blended learning through offline and online courses so both our students and faculty can gain a lot. Our faculty will also be trained by them and they can use the platform to launch their own online courses,” added Jain.
The first batch of graduating students from Bennett’s business school has been assured a job with the group. University V-C Yaj Medury said with the edX partnership, it didn’t make sense to re-create content already available from top faculty. “We will ask students to take some of the relevant courses and the exam from edX and show the certificate and earn credits. At least 8-15% courses will be conducted online. The extra time will be utilized to engage in other academic activities and group discussions that are currently missing in Indian higher education.”