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Is EduSat a `turkey in the sky'?

Divya Gandhi

EduSat beams lectures to 10,000 classrooms in technical universities and primary schools across the country. But is the initiative a success?

IN THE glare of the media flash bulbs two and a half years ago, the Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO) launched EduSat, the world's first satellite dedicated exclusively to education. Conceptualised by K. Kasturirangan, then the ISRO chairman, EduSat was launched under the chairmanship of G. Madhavan Nair. Expectations were naturally pitched high as the satellite made its way skyward on the evening of September 20, 2004. Possibilities for education suddenly seemed infinite. Space technology could now be harnessed to "reach the unreached" and to "bridge the divide" between rural and urban schools and colleges, ISRO predicted. Virtual classrooms could solve the problem of the low teacher-student ratio.

EduSat, equipped with 12 transponders, each with a massive bandwidth of approximately 36 megahertz, beams lectures to 10,000 classrooms in technical universities and primary schools across the country. These include the Visvesvaraya Technological University (VTU) in Karnataka, the Indira Gandhi National Open University in New Delhi, Anna University in Chennai, the Technical Education Board in Rajasthan, the West Bengal University of Technology in Kolkata, and Manipur University in Imphal. In Karnataka, for example, the lectures are prepared by VTU and the Department of School Education Research and Training (DSERT) for technical colleges and primary schools respectively. The lectures are delivered by specialists in the fields and broadcast live from a studio with an uplink facility at DSERT.

As the satellite approaches midlife, one wonders if the EduSat vision has translated into qualitative change. To judge from the responses of colleges and schools that EduSat is supposed to have benefited in Karnataka, it appears that the project is at best underutilised and at worst, some may even say, an imposition on regular curricula. ISRO estimates the cost of the satellite and launch vehicle at Rs.450 crore. However, adding the cost of content development, the ground segment infrastructure, salaries etc., the project is estimated "conservatively," according to unofficial figures, to have cost between Rs.800 crore and Rs.900 crore. In Karnataka, VTU is the most important partner for the project, and all the 120 colleges under its umbrella — many of them in rural areas — have access to EduSat programmes. These include lectures on subjects such as Strength of Materials, Mathematics, and Structural Analysis. As for primary education, nearly 900 schools in Chamarajnagar district receive broadcasts in Math, English, and Science through the satellite.

Concerns over EduSat are not new. In 2005, a few months after EduSat was flagged off, the National Institute of Advanced Studies (NIAS) did a review of the efficacy of the project, with VTU as a case study. The project, it found, at the pilot stage and a few months into the semi-operational phase, was weak on many grounds — technical, institutional, managerial, and academic. The Hindu obtained a copy of the NIAS report from ISRO after it filed a requisition on December 22 under the Right to Information Act. It received the report a month later. Of the over 1000 students interviewed by NIAS, as many as 73 per cent had not attended EduSat programmes at all. The satellite interactive system, the key to the success of the programme, was often either ineffective or hardly ever used. The video and audio quality of the broadcasts was found to be deficient. An overwhelming majority of teachers felt that EduSat programmes clashed with the schedule of their lectures. The content, NIAS felt, did not do justice to the full potential of multi-media.

NIAS concluded that there was a "lack of clear objectives" in an initiative that could have supplemented classroom education, or at the least reduced the need for private tuitions. The academic quality and the attendance suffered, the NIAS report suggests, because of a perceived "top down approach" to a planning process that did not adequately involve teachers and principals. ISRO had attempted to "pull off a large-scale project sooner than desirable," says the report.

Two years on, little seems to have changed, and NIAS's recommendations appear to have gone unheeded. Even today EduSat halls in an overwhelming number of technical colleges in the State equipped with TVs and dishes provided by ISRO and VTU, where nine hours of EduSat programmes can be viewed every day, remain empty. G.L. Shekhar, Special Officer, VTU e-learning, admits that only 40 per cent of the colleges watch EduSat programmes on a regular basis — but the figure could be much less if we were to go by what the teachers and students told us. This reporter spoke to students, teachers, and principals of five VTU colleges where EduSat is operative. "Why must we attend EduSat when most of its resource people are our own teachers," asked a student at the high-end government BMS Institute of Technology, who says he knows no one who attends EduSat at his college. This was a sentiment shared by students of R.V. College of Engineering, another well established college in Bangalore. A senior student of computer science at the M.S. Ramaiah Institute of Technology said she had "heard of EduSat." She recalled that the EduSat room was next door to her classroom though "no one was ever in it."

But what of the smaller colleges, with fewer lecturers? Has EduSat managed to "bridge the divide" here? Teachers at Dr. P.G. Halkatti College of Engineering & Technology in Bijapur have actually made an effort to integrate the programme into the curriculum. But even here, a student said that he eventually discontinued EduSat classes in electronics and computer science for want of time.

"Engineering colleges require an attendance of 85 per cent, and EduSat can clash with our regular time-table," he says. "We would have preferred CDs that we could watch at our convenience." In fact the request for CDs is heard in all the colleges where The Hindu met students, a reflection of the deficiencies in the satellite interactive system. SMS and email are used instead to pose questions. Even so, the backlog of questions from students across the State makes such communication difficult.

Do these factors suggest that satellite technology for education has been less than effective? "We appreciate the efforts to address issues of education, but technology must supplement, not substitute teachers," says A.R. Vasavi, a fellow at NIAS and one of the authors of the evaluation report. "An enterprise like this needs to be a democratic one, which involves stakeholders at the planning and design stage, not just at the user level." There has been, and not surprisingly so, fear among teachers that they might be made redundant. Recently there were reports about "jealous professors" who refused to switch on the terminals much to the dismay of VTU Vice-Chancellor K. Balaveera Reddy, who threatened to "withdraw affiliation" to such uncooperative colleges.

As for the content of EduSat programmes, there have been concerns that it does little more than transfer the "chalk and talk" method via satellite. Speaking on the pedagogical implications of satellite education, especially at the primary school level, Bangalore-based educationist Geetha Narayan believes that "interaction is crucial for young children, since learning is never culturally neutral or contextually the same." Vince Joseph, Director of the relatively new M.S. College in Devanahalli, has a similar view. "Some subjects such as machine design, which involve practical work, or those that are math-intensive can hardly be taught via satellite," he says.

Even as plans to reach EduSat to "every State in the country" by the year-end are being made, according to C. Varadarajan, Associate Director EduSat, several questions arise over the fate of the programme. Who is responsible for the future of the project? Who oversees the performance of EduSat in colleges and schools? "We have provided the necessary technology and have also improved on problems like that of lip sync," responds A. Bhaskaranarayana, Director, SatCom, ISRO. "We have done our job, and it is now up to the users to evaluate it."

While VTU has an evaluation form on its website for students, there is no formal procedure of review for colleges that use the programme. No further reviews of VTU-EduSat have been commissioned by ISRO after the uncomfortable NIAS report. That VTU is considered by ISRO to be a "role model" for other colleges across the country raises serious concerns over how EduSat fares in colleges in other States. "Technical colleges in Haryana have been proactive and have been logging on regularly to EduSat," says Mr. Bhaskaranarayana. He says he is unable to comment about EduSat-linked colleges in other States.

Recently however, ISRO asked for a review from DSERT, which developed the content and oversees the project at the primary school level. According to informed sources, EduSat is used as not much more than as a baby-sitting device in some primary schools.

EduSat can still be rescued from becoming what Astronomer Royal Sir Martin Rees once said of the International Space Station: "a turkey in the sky — neither practical nor inspiring."

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