Kolkata, 13 October 2026 — The Commonwealth Educational Media Centre for Asia (COL-CEMCA), in collaboration with Netaji Subhas Open University (NSOU), Kolkata, organised a webinar on Designing Courses for Blended Learning under the Graduate Employability Project. The webinar brought together faculty members of NSOU to explore approaches to designing blended courses that integrate academic learning, practical skills and technology-enabled pedagogy.

The webinar aimed to orient faculty members on developing outcome-based courses that combine face-to-face engagement, online learning, self-study and practical application. Discussions highlighted the importance of aligning course objectives, content, pedagogy and assessment with learners’ needs and emerging industry requirements.

Addressing the participants, Dr B. Shadrach, Director, COL-CEMCA, spoke on Blended Pedagogy for Employability, highlighting the need to design courses that integrate theoretical knowledge with practical, workplace-relevant competencies. He emphasised that blended learning should go beyond simply moving classroom lectures online, and instead create structured learning experiences that combine theoretical reflection, guided collaboration and hands-on application. He also highlighted the importance of aligning course outcomes with industry needs and integrating academic learning with vocational skills to strengthen graduate employability.

“We are not actually porting our lectures in a PDF format, or moving our lectures online. We are coming up with a strategic pedagogical framework where it allows us to have deeper theoretical reflection with active, hands-on digital execution,” Dr Shadrach said.

The technical session was led by Prof. Venkaiah Vunnam, Consultant, COL-CEMCA, who delivered an online lecture on Designing Courses for Blended Learning. The session explored approaches to integrating synchronous and asynchronous learning, learning management systems, self-learning materials, face-to-face interactions and practical activities into a coherent course structure.

The webinar forms part of COL-CEMCA’s ongoing collaboration with NSOU under the Graduate Employability Project, which supports participating open universities in strengthening graduate employability through relevant course development, capacity building and outcome-oriented learning approaches.