New Delhi: Chief of the Army Staff (COAS) General Upendra Dwivedi, launched an online learning platform for the Indian Army, ‘Eklavya’ in line with the vision of ‘Decade of Transformation’ and Indian Army’s theme for 2024 as ‘Year of Technology Absorption’.
This platform has been hosted on the Army Data Network and features a scalable architecture, enabling Headquarters Army Training Command to seamlessly integrate several training establishments of the Indian Army, each capable of hosting an extensive range of courses. Student officers are allowed to register for multiple courses simultaneously. As many as 96 courses by 17 Category ‘A’ Training Establishments of the Indian Army have already been hosted on the platform.
There are three categories of courses hosted on the ‘Eklavya’ platform. The first is the ‘Pre-Course Preparatory Capsules’ category, which has study material for all offline physical courses conducted at various Category ‘A’ training centres. The aim is to shift the “basics” to the online courses so that physical courses have more and more contemporary content with a focus on the “application part”.
“It will help to decongest the existing courses while generating time for adding emerging concepts as per the changing character of warfare. An important aspect is that the students can register for any course at any point of their service,” the defence ministry said in a release.
The second category of courses are the “appointment or specific assignment-related courses”. Officers on getting posted to some of the specialist appointments have to learn the craft by getting on-the-job training (OJT) and hence, it takes some time before they start functioning with full efficiency. Some of these appointments are in information warfare, defence land management, financial planning, discipline and vigilance, works, provost, and veteran affairs among others. Officers appointed to such domains will be able to function better if they undergo an online capsule course in the respective domain as they receive their posting order.
Besides, the courses in this category will also enable the officers to get domain specialisation in the field of their choice, which will further aid their employment planning.
The third category of courses is the ‘Professonal Development Suite’ which includes courses on Strategy, Operational Art, Leadership, Organisational Behaviour, Finance, Art of Reading, Power Writing, and Emerging Technology among others.
“The platform will go a long way in encouraging continuous professional military education in the officers, decongest and enrich the existing physical course, preparing officers for specialist appointments and encouraging domain specialisation,” the defence ministry said.
Developed under the aegis of Headquarters Army Training Command with Army War College as the sponsoring agency, the ‘Eklavya’ platform has been developed at zero cost through Bhaskaracharya National Institute of Space Applications and Geoinformatics (BISAG-N), Gandhinagar, along with support from Directorate General of Information Systems.
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