Tele-Education Programme in India
- Paper number
IAC-08.E1.3.9
- Author
Mr. A. Bhaskaranarayana, Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO), India
- Coauthor
Dr. P.K. Jain, ISRO Headquarters, India
- Year
2008
- Abstract
Education plays a pivotal role in effecting the social change by altering the human perspective and transforming the traditional mindset of the society. The promotion of the universal primary education has become the top priority, especially for the developing countries like India. The quality of classroom transaction especially in government schools lacks enrichment on account of the large number of students in classrooms and limited resources (teachers & material). The difficult areas of curriculum do not get disseminated in an appropriate manner. The advantage of multimedia and visual aids for enhancing the learning levels is not fully explored and not available in all schools. The government data indicates that the lack of adequate infrastructure continues to be a problem in rural government schools. In rural areas there is very little scope for children and teachers to access any information resources beyond what is stated in the textbook. In the absence of such access to resources, any new avenue for information can potentially add a lot of value especially if the manner of presentation of such information is attractive enough for the children and teacher. Communication Satellite makes an ideal broadcast system using its vast foot prints covering whole country. It, therefore, has tremendous advantage where one teacher is required to reach many students scattered across the country. The concept of beaming educational programmes through satellites was effectively demonstrated for the first time in India in 1975-76 through the Satellite Instructional Television Experiment (SITE) conducted using American satellite ATS-6. Subsequently several experiments, educational programmes and networks were implemented before launching a satellite, Edusat, in September 2004, dedicated exclusively for educational services in India. The Edusat Utilization Programme is being run since then by Indian Space Research Organization (ISRO) in association with state governments and Ministry of Human Resource Development (MHRD), and VSAT networks (interactive and broadcast) are being setup in all states of the country to provide curriculum based education in schools, colleges and teacher’s training institutes. This paper highlights the Tele-education programme of India including its configuration, policy guidelines, current status, future implementation plan, impact on Education-system, and difficulties encountered and lessons learnt during its implementation.
- Abstract document
- Manuscript document
(absent)