India’s first hybrid learning facility inaugurated at Maratha Mandal Engineering College, Belgaum

In collaboration with Tech Avant-Garde and AICTE

The pandemic disturbed all sectors of society and revealed its fault lines—especially in our education system. The reaction to the crisis has generated some impressive responses, in some cases, public and private partnerships have filled the gaps. One such partnership is between All India Council for Technical Education (AICTE) and Tech Avant-Garde (TAG) to transform AICTE approved colleges from Physical to Hybrid Mode. Under this program, Maratha Mandal Engineering College in Belgaum became the first AICTE-approved college that adopted Hybrid Learning. As a result, this institution is lockdown Proof and NEP 2020 complaint. Hybrid Learning will create learner-centred experiences that are profoundly personalized, relevant and engaging.

In Maratha Mandal Engineering College, the following Hybrid Learning facilities are created viz, Hybrid Studio, Hybrid Hub Classroom and Node Classroom. All students of the college have access to the Hybrid Learning in the classroom. The Connected Learning Community System and Teaching Learning System have been implemented. The college is using Hybrid pedagogy – Gen Extra Muros and every student has been given a device. Learning can happen from anywhere anyplace and on any device

The Hybrid Learning facility was inaugurated by Dr C.N Ashwath Narayan, Hon’ble Minister for Higher Education Karnataka on Dec 27^th 2022. During his inaugural speech, he said “Digitalization of education will give our students an edge over others. This Hybrid Facility is a necessity; this will help our students to become global citizens. I am proud of Maratha Mandal to become the first Hybrid Learning College in India. After NEP2020, Karnataka is the first state to implement Hybrid Learning”.   

Speaking on the inauguration of the centre, Ali Sait, CEO, Tech Avant-Garde (TAG) said, “Hybrid Learning is both synchronous and asynchronous, virtual and bricks and mortar which explicitly embraces effective Pedagogies, Partnerships, Environments, and Digital to allow all learners to access, understand, create, co-create and refine new knowledge. It is the cornerstone for a new educational paradigm and allows teachers and learners to pursue possibilities previously out of reach for all but a few learners”.

Speaking on the event, Rajshree Nagaraju, President of Maratha Mandal Engineering College  said, “I dedicate this achievement to the nation, now we will have a state producing students who are Future Ready. This was the dream of our founding fathers; our group has served the nation for 96 years. We want to reinvent ourselves and our students should become stars of Knowledge Age. We are ready!”

In order to prepare educational institutions to use hybrid modalities effectively, teacher training and preparation will become more and more important. TAG will train teachers on teaching and learning platforms, Connected Learning Community and Hybrid Learning Pedagogy. For the transition from the Traditional to Hybrid School, TAG will partner with Microsoft and other partners. TAG will also collaborate with QCI to accredit educational institutions on Hybrid Learning.  

With implementation of technology and using the Hybrid Learning Pedagogy Educational Institutions can take advantage of Cognitive learning, Mixed Reality, Immersive Learning, IOT, AR-VR, STEM & STEAM Learning, and Artificial Intelligence, which will eventually change the way people learn.

Also read: TAG hosts world’s largest hybrid learning workshop for 10K AICTE approved institutes and colleges