MHRD plans to launch 1,000 education channels

Aiming to give a boost to education, the Union Ministry of Human Resources Development (MHRD) is turning to television in a big way and intends to launch as many as 1,000 channels. It has already initiated steps to launch the first 50 round-the-clock channels at the earliest and approached the Ministry of Information and Broadcasting for permission, sources told PTI.

The MHRD has also started the process for appointing a consultant for setting up the infrastructure for the 50 Direct-To-Home (DTH) channels. The country’s premier educational institutions have been asked to prepare lectures and educational material that can be telecast, the sources said. Content for these channels is being prepared by premier educational institutes, they said.

The MHRD initiated steps to launch the 50 channels after clearance of a major technological hurdle with the Department of Space assuring the use of two 36 MHz KU Band transponders in satellite GSAT 8 spacecraft for the channels. The channels are a part of the National Mission of Education through Information and Communication Technology (NME-ICT) initiative.

“While the MHRD wanted to start the 50 channels at the earliest, the permission from the information and broadcasting ministry may take a little time as the latest guidelines specify that formation of a company is one of the requirements to start a channel,” a source said.

Source: The Financial Express, February 18, 2012

Government to connect higher education institutes

At least 15 million college students pursuing higher education will be able to share information, lab experiments and classroom content as the Union cabinet on Tuesday approved a proposal to connect 572 universities, 25,000 colleges and 2,000 polytechnics as part of its mission to promote technology usage in higher education.

This approval will merge the National Knowledge Network, promoted by the erstwhile National Knowledge Commission, and the National Mission on Education through Information Communication and Technology (NMEICT). With this, all colleges and universities can hope for seamless connectivity that will enable e-learning, and enhance e-content repository and sharing of best practices.

“The ultimate target is to provide last-mile connectivity and provide high-quality e-content to be used with the connectivity being provided to the universities and colleges across the country,” Ambika Soni​, Union minister for Information and Broadcasting, said after a cabinet meeting. In colleges and universities with Internet access, the technology will be upgraded to optical fibre cables from copper wire-based connectivity, the cabinet note says. Every institute will have a “provisioning of 400 nodes of LAN (local area network) on an average.”

Initially, the government had approved connecting 18,000 colleges and 419 universities. The addition of polytechnics is a part of the government’s push to promote vocational and skill education to bridge the demand-supply gap for efficient human resources in the country. The government has not specified the amount to be spent on the initiative.

Since 2009, only 11,600 colleges have got Internet connectivity—a success rate of 47%, according to data from the human resource development ministry. States that have benefited include Haryana, Punjab, Kerala and Karnataka. Once seamless connectivity is established, students will have complete access to the e-content being generated under NMEICT.

Several hundred hours of lectures of Indian Institutes of Technology (IITs) professors will be available for free. In addition, the ministry is promoting a virtual lab and an interactive online audio tutorial. In October, the government launched a low-cost computer for students. But both government and private experts have said such devices will not drive a change in learning unless college have access to the Internet. With the latest decision to improve connectivity, the $35 computer can be used better despite its several configuration limitations. Human resource development minister Kapil Sibal​ had said the device ‘Aakash’ will help eliminate digital illiteracy, but the country needs high-quality study content to be made accessible to students online.

Private universities say the move is a good step, but Internet connectivity and e-content need to be integrated for students to benefit. Aman Mittal, deputy director at Punjab’s Lovely Professional University, said the facility is unlikely to be free. “This is a good step as students and professors can now access a lot of information available outside their own campus. But what is required is to boost the e-content repository and clear framework on how to use it better,” he said. “But anyway, availing IIT lectures will be of help to students.”

Colleges and universities that have already adopted technology will benefit more, he said. “But I believe there should be some agreed framework on the usage. If a lecture series is happening at any IIT or a leading varsity, we can benefit if there is some broad agreement on content sharing.” India has some 130 private universities, according to official statistics.

Source: Mint, November 2, 2011

Soon, virtual varsity for tech education

Here is good news for the students wishing to take up distance learning but apprehensive of the lesser value attached to the technical degrees obtained from these courses as compared to those from regular streams. The Centre is planning to establish a virtual university that will impart training on diverse technical areas to the undergraduate and postgraduate students as well as the newly recruited teachers through flexible, credit-based correspondence courses.

The proposed Virtual Technical University (VTU) will offer programmes in the fields of science, technology, management, architecture, pharmacy and other areas of applied knowledge. It would come up as part of the National Mission on Education through Information and Communication Technology (NMEICT), an initiative of the Ministry of Human Resource Development (MHRD).

“There is no question on the feasibility of the virtual university because the world is moving in that direction. We only need to implement it and though the idea has not come before the board as yet, we expect the varsity to be there in the current Plan period (2007-12),” said M. Anandakrishnan, Chairman, Board of Governors, Indian Institute of Technology (IIT), Kanpur.

The Birla Institute of Technology and Science (BITS) has a virtual university that enables off-campus students to avail of the facilities offered to a normal on-campus student registered under the same programme and get a degree from BITS. “The piecemeal approach to distance learning is leading to its misuse and a quality check is needed. The education system is large enough to accept another type of distance learning model besides IGNOU (Indira Gandhi National Open University),” added Anandakrishnan.

The university will use video courses, web-based learning material and live lectures using satellite and internet-based technologies. The VTU will have a repository of video courses created by experts in the field, a website that will host learning material while live lectures will be delivered using satellite and Internet technologies. The virtual university may also have five different schools — one each on developing teaching methodology, engineering sciences, natural sciences, management sciences and human sciences.

The school of education will look at developing inner and outer strength of the individuals and their emotional intelligence while that of engineering would focus on different disciplines of engineering. The school of management sciences will look at industrial and management engineering. Human sciences like economics and humanities would be catered to by the school of human sciences. A high-powered panel set up by the ministry for faculty development in technical institutes had recommended that each school float a suitable number of courses in order to cater to the need of various disciplines associated with the school.

It was envisaged that VTU shall have at least 300 courses for the school of engineering sciences and engage a large pool of talented faculty from Indian Institutes of Technology (IITs), National Institutes of Technology (NITs), Indian Institute of Science (IISc) and other institutions and retired faculty.

Source: The Financial Express, May 16, 2011

Virtual IITs: Top degrees a click away – BSNL to set up virtual univ network

After half-a-century of being an exclusive club, the Indian Institutes of Technology (IITs) will finally open their gates wider. Assigned the task of reaching out to more Indian students, IIT directors are drawing up plans to set up a virtual university. IIT-Madras Director M. S. Ananth said, “We basically want to make quality education accessible to many more students using modern tools instead of setting up brickand-mortar campuses”. The proposal has been accepted as part of the National Mission on Education through ICT (NMEICT). But Ananth was quick to add that the details are yet to be worked out and the plan would be rolled out over two years. “We will involve industry in administering the programme. Moreover,we need to create labs where students can perform experiments. The IITs will take care of the entry, the exit and develop the courses”, he explained.

The job may be said to have already begun. The IITs and the Bangalore-based Indian Institute of Science (IISc) have already designed 240 courses that were captured on video in studios set up in the institutes. They will develop 1,000 more courses in the second phase. The IITs have also run pilots on virtual labs. The Union Human Resource Development Ministry has allotted Rs. 4,600 crore (Rs. 46 billion) for three years till March 2012 for NMEICT, the mission under which course content is being developed and virtual labs will be created. Kannan Moudgalya, member of the NMEICT standing committee, described the exercise as ambitious.

The idea of a virtual technical university was first mooted by the P. Rama Rao Committee, which looked at expanding quality engineering education across the country in 2006.

BSNL to set up virtual univ network
IIT directors are working on a plan to create a virtual university. Public sector telephony giant BSNL has been asked to provide the necessary bandwidth to ensure that no college is without connectivity. Kannan Moudgalya, standing committee member of the National Mission on Education through ICT (NMEICT), said, “The two plans (of setting up a virtual platform and allowing access to existing colleges) should not be viewed as being mutually exclusive”, he added.

The P. Rama Rao report, which first mooted the idea of a virtual technical university, had pointed out that engineering colleges are plagued by factors like faculty shortage, forcing several institutes to recruit teachers who do not possess the minimum prescribed qualifications. An inferior quality of education is the result.

IIT-Kanpur Director Sanjay Dhande, who is also working on NMEICT, cautioned that the IITs would have to ensure that quality did not suffer in the race to expand student intake. But there is no denying that we want to reach out to more candidates using technology, he added. The IIT directors have often lamented that there are several bright brains who are identified in the gruelling Joint Entrance Exam (popularly known as JEE) but get left out because of the restrictive student capacity.

Source: The Times of India, May 16, 2010

Virtual IITs: Top degrees a click away – BSNL to set up virtual univ network

After half-a-century of being an exclusive club, the Indian Institutes of Technology (IITs) will finally open their gates wider. Assigned the task of reaching out to more Indian students, IIT directors are drawing up plans to set up a virtual university. IIT-Madras Director M. S. Ananth said, “We basically want to make quality education accessible to many more students using modern tools instead of setting up brickand-mortar campuses”. The proposal has been accepted as part of the National Mission on Education through ICT (NMEICT). But Ananth was quick to add that the details are yet to be worked out and the plan would be rolled out over two years. “We will involve industry in administering the programme. Moreover,we need to create labs where students can perform experiments. The IITs will take care of the entry, the exit and develop the courses”, he explained.

The job may be said to have already begun. The IITs and the Bangalore-based Indian Institute of Science (IISc) have already designed 240 courses that were captured on video in studios set up in the institutes. They will develop 1,000 more courses in the second phase. The IITs have also run pilots on virtual labs. The Union Human Resource Development Ministry has allotted Rs. 4,600 crore (Rs. 46 billion) for three years till March 2012 for NMEICT, the mission under which course content is being developed and virtual labs will be created. Kannan Moudgalya, member of the NMEICT standing committee, described the exercise as ambitious.

The idea of a virtual technical university was first mooted by the P. Rama Rao Committee, which looked at expanding quality engineering education across the country in 2006.

BSNL to set up virtual univ network
IIT directors are working on a plan to create a virtual university. Public sector telephony giant BSNL has been asked to provide the necessary bandwidth to ensure that no college is without connectivity. Kannan Moudgalya, standing committee member of the National Mission on Education through ICT (NMEICT), said, “The two plans (of setting up a virtual platform and allowing access to existing colleges) should not be viewed as being mutually exclusive”, he added.

The P. Rama Rao report, which first mooted the idea of a virtual technical university, had pointed out that engineering colleges are plagued by factors like faculty shortage, forcing several institutes to recruit teachers who do not possess the minimum prescribed qualifications. An inferior quality of education is the result.

IIT-Kanpur Director Sanjay Dhande, who is also working on NMEICT, cautioned that the IITs would have to ensure that quality did not suffer in the race to expand student intake. But there is no denying that we want to reach out to more candidates using technology, he added. The IIT directors have often lamented that there are several bright brains who are identified in the gruelling Joint Entrance Exam (popularly known as JEE) but get left out because of the restrictive student capacity.

Source: The Times of India, May 16, 2010