Tele-education
Grab Success with Tele-Education
Ever since Dr APJ Abdul Kalam took up the initiative of promoting Tele-Education, IGNOU has been one of the key institutions, which relates students to success and offers them worldwide recognition through its courses By Jaydeep Saha
I
ndia is certainly making some big time advancement in the field of education business and the evidence of the same is the launch of tele-education project. This project was recommended at the time of the visit of former president of India Dr. Abdul Kalam to Johannesburg in the month of September 2004. The Government of Mauritius had sealed a pact for the same in March 2006 with New Delhi-based Telecommunications Consultants India Limited (TCIL) to introduce this project. Owing to this, the residents of Mauritius can now have access to the three centres such as teleeducation, tele-medicine, and Very Very Important Person (VVIP) Node. About 4500 students all over Africa are benefiting from tele-education. They are enrolling in the bachelor’s or master’s degree courses of the premier universities in India. The courses that can
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be done under this project include – Diploma in HIV/Aids and Family Welfare from the Indira Gandhi National Open University (IGNOU); Bachelor in Business Administration from University of Madras; and MBA in International Business, Bachelor in Finance and Investment Analysis and Masters in Finance and Control from Amity University. In 2008, IGNOU signed an agreement with Telecommunications Consultants India Limited (TCIL) to begin its tele-education programme. Now, it has been able to reach students in Ethiopia, Malawi, Kenya, Ghana, Nigeria, Somalia, Rwanda, Senegal, Egypt, Ethiopia, Mauritius, Benin and Botswana. The project is funded by the Indian government with a budgeted cost of Rs.5.43 billion ($117 million).Through tele-education, five African Regional Leading Universities were planned to be
linked to the hub to provide access to the 53 Remote Virtual Classes spread over 53 countries. The connection was also strategised to be established through VSAT (forward/ Return/downlink 512kbps / uplink 2mbps) or 2mbbs broadband. About seven Indian universities were planned to be linked to the Hub in Africa via IPLC where India would be in-charge of the Tele-Education LMS portal consisting of Tele-Education delivery system software of the university. The software would be integrated with the digital library solutions, content management KMS (Knowledge Management System) and e-Learning solutions to be used by the universities as a package. The portal has been designed to help students to access information related to education centres, courses and universities in India. To facilitate the live virtual classroom trainings, seven Indian uni-
Tele-education
versities have been equipped with the parallel Tele-Education system and have connections to the TCIL’s central data centre. Further, the remote terminal facilitates to use the internet via the VSAT connectivity. Under the Tele-Education network, sessions are first conducted live and then, captured in a knowledge management system to allow offline access. Not only this, the content management software under this project has flexibility, scalability and easy configuration process. It has been so created that the universities in Africa gets to build and produce their own local content to meet the requirements of the local people. Regular Tele-Medicine and Tele-Education services have already been started on this network. At present, the TeleMedicine consultations are regularly being conducted from Super-Specialty Hospitals from India to the African countries on need basis. Moreover, regular Continued Medical Education (CME) sessions have been started with effect from 22nd April, 2009 from 11 Indian Super-Specialty Hospitals. So far 654 CME sessions have been conducted on this network. Regarding Tele-Education services from India, more than 2000 students from Africa have been enrolled in 5 different top ranking universities in India in various disciplines like MBA, Master in Finance Control, PG Diploma in IT, M.Sc. in IT and Bachelor in Finance and Investment Analysis and many others. Regular Tele-Education live sessions are being conducted from India and students have shown great interest in the courses. In 2010, a live example of the benefits came to the fore when Francis Mbangwa, a Kenyan farmer in his late 20s, revolved around crops and fertiliser. He would eagerly wait for the harvest season, sometimes face a severe financial crunch because of a bad crop. However, Francis is a marketing manager in a leading corporate firm in Kenya now. The turnaround happened when Francis decided to pursue his bachelor’s degree from IGNOU as it came at the right time in Africa. It was through IGNOU that he got a glimpse of the Indian education system. TCIL has established the Network with a Data Center in TCIL Bhawan, New Delhi that acts as a gateway to the Hub Station in Dakar for connectivity of Indian institutions on the African side. \\ digitalLEARNING / MAY 2011
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