The Hindu : New Delhi News : Building a digital bridge over the Brahmaputra

Online edition of India's National Newspaper
Tuesday, Mar 29, 2005

New Delhi

New Delhi

Building a digital bridge over the Brahmaputra

NEW DELHI, MARCH 28. In the middle of the mighty Brahmaputra, in a remote part of Assam, is Majuli, the largest riverine island in the world. For the 1.5 lakh odd inhabitants on this 800 sq km of land, the only mode of communication with the outside world is a ferry that operates twice a day. Every year floods ravage the island and power is but an infrequent visitor. It's hardly the place you would expect to find computer savvy students.

Yet, at one of the government schools here, students can handle the mouse and keyboard with aplomb. The school boasts a sophisticated computer lab where children between 10 and 17 years of age learn their bits and bytes. Very soon, three more schools on this remote island will be equipped to bridge the digital divide, under a programme launched by the Assam government in association with a computer training company.

``Majuli is but one of the remote areas of Assam where boats and and ferries had to be used to transport PCs and gensets to Majuli. However, to reach the Ajitullah Public Higher Secondary School in Dhubri district of Assam, we will literally have to carry computers on people's heads,'' says Balasubramanium, Head, training, NIIT.

So remote is the school situated in the western gateway of Assam that it can be reached only by foot. As for the Dr Zakir Hussain Higher Secondary School in Baghbar, a combination of buses, boats and long walks on Kuchha walks will have to be used, he says.

Often, the language barrier - in many a school, students understand only Boro, Assamese or Bengali - was easier to crack, than the physical barriers, he says.

Yet, undaunted, the government and the computer giant have been reaching out to remote outposts in the state by boat, by bus, and even on foot. To counter the problem of erratic electric supply, the provision for generator sets has been made at all the schools.

In this initiative, not only 1.5 lakh secondary school students will be made computer literate but they will also be taught English, Science, Maths and Social Science through computers. Eventually, all 630 higher secondary schools in the state will be covered under the Rajiv Gandhi Computer Literacy Programme, touching 4 lakh students in the state.

The `Computer Aided Education' project is path breaking in many ways. For one, it is the first such initiative in the North East, combining IT education with English language skills - and free of cost for the students. Besides, it is expected to give employment to over 1,000 local educated youth. Each school will have two teachers. In addition, there will be a school coordinator for every 10 schools, says Balasubramanium.

The project would also work towards enhancing the skill base of youth in Assam by using these schools to provide state-of-the-art computer education to local citizens in the post school hours. With this initiative, the Assam government hopes to create a pool of skilled English speaking IT manpower that can easily fit into the world of ITES. - PTI

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