Over 1.83L people register for online training course on COVID-19: Jitendra Singh

Over 1.83 lakh frontline COVID-19 warriors have registered for an online training course aimed at empowering them in dealing with the pandemic, Union Minister Jitendra Singh said on Thursday.

He said in a novel experiment, possibly the first of its kind, the Department of Personnel and Training (DoPT) had introduced a module for empowering frontline coronavirus warriors through the learning platform igot.gov.in.

"What was envisaged to be an online medium to equip the frontline coronavirus warriors with training and updates in coping with the COVID-19 pandemic has in fact proved to be a unique success story which would possibly be emulated in different forms in the times to come," said Singh, the Minister of State for Personnel, Public Grievances and Pensions.

"DoPT online corona course is receiving huge response and within two weeks of its launching, over 2,90,000 training courses have been initiated and over 1,83,000 users have registered on the platform," a statement issued by the Personnel Ministry quoted the minister as having said.

The learning platform is based on Prime Minister Narendra Modi's vision to empower the frontline warriors and also to protect them from falling prey to the virus by equipping them with the right kind of knowledge, Singh said.

The contents of the course include basics of COVID-19, clinical management, ICU care management, infection prevention and care, usage of PPE, quarantine and isolation, training for NCC cadets, management of COVID-19 cases, laboratory sample collection and testing, psychological care of patients, paediatric care in COVID-19 and pregnancy during the epidemic, the statement said.

New learning content is being regularly added to the modules which are designed to cater to the training requirements of 18 sets of roles ranging from doctors, nurses, paramedics and police organisations to Nehru Yuva Kendras, Anganwadi and ASHA workers, it said.

The exclusive platform has been providing training modules on flexi-time and on-site basis so that coronavirus response can be delivered at scale to smartphones, the statement said, adding a dedicated android-based app for this purpose has also been launched.