The Hindu : Front Page : VTU's second television channel to cover all affiliated colleges

Online edition of India's National Newspaper
Saturday, Sep 17, 2005

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VTU's second television channel to cover all affiliated colleges

Staff Reporter

The programmes will be telecast from a studio in Mysore using EDUSAT

FILLIP TO EDUCATION: G. Madhavan Nair (left), ISRO Chairman, speaking to K. Balaveera Reddy, VTU Vice-Chancellor, at the launch of the channel in Bangalore on Friday. — Photo: K. Murali Kumar

BANGALORE: Chairman of Indian Space Research Organisation G. Madhavan Nair on Friday launched the Visvesvaraya Technological University's (VTU) second television channel. Classes in engineering subjects will be telecast on the channel by using the Education Satellite (EDUSAT).

The new channel of the VTU will provide distance education services to all 100 colleges affiliated to the university. Students of 50 colleges will be able to use an interactive facility to put questions to lecturers. Students can record the footage for reference.

Speaking at the "VTU-EDUSAT" conference organised to mark the completion of one year of successful utilisation of EDUSAT, Mr. Nair said the distance mode is the only way in which education can be taken to remote places in the country. "Last year, distance education benefited two lakh people. There are nearly 200 million schoolchildren who need to be covered," he said. Mr. Nair said one of the challenges in providing distance education is preparation of course content. There is a need to involve many more experienced teachers in the task, and ISRO is facing the problem in taking forward the State Government's initiative to impart training to primary school teachers through the distance education mode "We are working with the Education Department to find a solution," he said.

Shobha Nambisan, Principal Secretary, Higher Education, said the cost of providing education is increasing and distance education has proved to be a cost-effective way of imparting education.

"Students in remote places can listen to lectures and demonstrations by experts. The facility being provided to engineering courses should be extended to medical and polytechnic courses," she said.

Against tuitions

K. Balaveera Reddy, VTU Vice-Chancellor, said the university, by using the EDUSAT satellite, is providing engineering students live sessions of technological courses. "This is being done with an intention to stop students from taking recourse to tuitions," he said and added that the programmes are beamed from a studio in Mysore.

Apart from lecture sessions, the university will telecast programmes on developing the personality of students, which will include classes in English, Mr. Reddy said.

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