The Hindu : Karnataka News : 800 schools in Chamarajanagar selected for EDUSAT project

Online edition of India's National Newspaper
Monday, Sep 20, 2004

Karnataka

Karnataka - Others

800 schools in Chamarajanagar selected for EDUSAT project

By Our Correspondent

CHAMARAJANAGAR, SEPT. 19. Elementary and higher education in the country is all set to cross new frontiers and ready to take a qualitative leap with India's first exclusive satellite for educational services, "EDUSAT," expected to be launched from Sriharikota Satellite Launching Station on September 20.

The Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO), which has envisaged the development of a nationwide education network through EDUSAT, will provide sustainable qualitative elementary education through distance education service using GSAT-3. The ISRO's project entails space-based connectivity through EDUSAT and is targeted at elementary schools, colleges and technical institutes involved in higher education to enhance the scope and quality of non-formal education.

Pilot project

The first phase is a pilot project being implemented in Karnataka, Maharashtra and Madhya Pradesh. Chamarajanagar is the first rural district in the State to be selected for EDUSAT pilot project and more than 800 Government primary schools have been chosen for the purpose.

The former chairman of ISRO and Director of the National Institute of Advanced Studies (NIAS), Bangalore, K. Kasturirangan, had visited Chamarajanagar recently to review the preliminary work on the eve of the launch of the project.

Though the concept was poised for widespread acceptance among both the students and the faculty, the virtual classrooms cannot replace the real traditional teacher, Mr. Kasturirangan said delivering a lecture on "The role of teachers in quality improvement in elementary education," organised by the NIAS here recently.

A baseline study had been conducted in this regard for the implementation of the EDUSAT programme. The second phase of the project, also known as the semi-operational phase, would facilitate the use of new technology and the network would expand to cover two more States and a national institution.

In the third phase of the project, the entire country would be covered using six regional beams and one national beam by enlarging the network and making it operational.

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