Electronic classrooms by Nov. 1: Minister

By Our Special Correspondent

HYDERABAD, SEPT. 28. The concept of an electronic classroom will be translated into reality, though on a modest scale, by November 1. A society with the Minister for Technical Education, Mr.Alapati Rajendra Prasad, as chairman, was set up to deal with issues relating to "networking for excellence in technical education".

To begin with, direct telecast of programmes through pre-pared cassettes from a Central Resource Centre in Hyderabad to the engineering colleges across the State would be started. Subsequently, video conference facility, intranet to promote web- based learning and a wide data base would be added.

The modalities of the institutional mechanism and the mobilisation of required funds for the project by involving the managements of the engineering colleges were discussed at a workshop presided over by the Minister for Technical Education on Thursday.

Addressing a press conference later, Mr.Rajendra Prasad said the 105-odd private engineering colleges would be enlisted as members of the society and a corpus fund of Rs 10 lakhs would be created initially to kickstart the project. The member-colleges would annually contribute Rs 1 lakh each to the society.

Mr.Rajendra Prasad made it clear that the students of the engineering colleges, who were the ultimate beneficiaries of the networking, would not be taxed in the process. The fee structure would remain unchanged and the programme would be funded by pooling resources from the colleges.

The Minister said the Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) signed with the Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO) enabled use of Ku Band facilities through the INSAT-3C satellite by the State Government for its public purposes. It provided sufficient bandwidth for running six channels and one channel was exclusively allotted for education. The connectivity of this backbone can be made use of to provide video conference facilities and regular telecast of educational programmes.

He said the number of engineering colleges had gone up from 37 to 105, with an intake of 27,000 seats. Another 46 colleges would be set up by 2003 offering a total of 40,000 engineering seats. The Government was concerned about the quality of education and therefore introduced certain innovations in teaching by using the latest technologies in communication. By creating electronic classrooms and providing video conferencing facilities in each college, the content can be shared by all the colleges while best of the resources can be developed centrally at the State-level.

The Minister explained that a central resource centre would be set up to prepare content and also outsource it from reputed institutions. Video cassettes on various topics would be used for interactive sessions in the classes.

Each college would have video conferencing facility and once the uplinking was available from Hyderabad, the students can have the benefit of direct presentation of lectures by eminent teachers. The expertise, now limited to some institutions, can thus be shared by others.

The Minister said the project also envisages provision of educational content on the exclusive intranetwork. It can be downloaded by students in each institution. They would be able to ask questions over e-mail and experts would be identified to reply. A wide database would be created to provide the details regarding students, faculty and colleges, curriculum and academic performance.

According to a note circulated to the participants of the workshop, the video conferencing equipment at the proposed State Centre would cost Rs 46 lakhs while the equipment at the receiving nodes would cost Rs 25 lakhs each. Each electronic classroom would cost Rs 16.55 lakhs while the annual lease charges of APSWAN for each node would work out to Rs 1 lakh.

Commissioner for Technical Education, Mr.Rajiv Sharma, said each engineering college would have to invest upto Rs 35 lakhs but it would ultimately benefit from the programme.

Prof.U.Malakonda Reddy, secretary of the private managements association, said they welcomed the project but the Government should allow some cushion to the managements to offset the heavy cost of the project.

Prof.Subba Rao, Chairman of A.P. State Council of Higher Education, and Vice-Chancellors of various universities participated in the workshop.

The Minister explained that the society would be registered shortly and it would take necessary steps to mobilise funds, create and share resources. In future the other technical institutions including MCA/MBA and polytechnics would also be included in the society.

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