Department of Higher Education launches web portal
The launch of the web portal ‘www.promelavya.kerala.gov.in' has brought the Department of Higher Education one step closer to its aim of ICT-enabling college education in the State.
Inaugurating the portal, Education Minister M.A. Baby said here on Monday that the portal was so named because it was expected to telescope the wit of the mythical Prometheus and the grit of Ekalavya.
The portal will initially be a repository of the lectures and other content generated by scholars who visit varsities in Kerala under the Erudite scheme. Eventually it will also host the curriculum-based video content generated by teachers across the State.
Already ‘promelavya' has on offer 10 videos on Malayalam, three each on Law and History, one each on Physics and Hindi and 17 other videos on various other subjects. Included in these are the lectures and interactions of Nobel laureates who recently visited universities in the State.
In tandem with the portal ‘gurusmarana', ‘promelavya' would seek to digitise and archive lecture sessions of eminent academics—including those of ageing luminaries in various fields—for use by future generations of students. ‘Gurusmarana' will host articles, lecture notes, research papers and books by the scholars. Already it has archived the contributions of more than 200 such experts.
Once ‘promelavya' is sufficiently stocked, the plan is to telecast the videos, on-demand, to colleges in the state using the Edusat.
From a research perspective the portal will be a rich repository of the pedagogical techniques and innovations of master-teachers.
The curriculum-based lectures which the portal will eventually host are expected to come handy wherever there is a shortage or lack of teachers in a particular field of study.
Moreover, researchers working in high-relevance areas, those doing post-doctoral work within the country and abroad can apply to post their video content at ‘promelavya.' Such content will be hosted once they are cleared by expert committees concerned. Since 2010, the Centre for Content Development inside the Government Sanskrit College, here, has been working to record lectures of living legends among teachers. These two portals are expected to synergise their activities with ‘Scholar' a portal designed to be a ready-reckoner for all academic details of scholars in Kerala. This portal too will allow teachers to upload lecture notes, working papers and other relevant material for use by students.
The Department has conceptualised a similar venture for engineering colleges too. The ‘KBASE' portal will be, according to the Department's concept note, the “online locus for collecting, preserving and disseminating in digital form the intellectual output of the engineering colleges and polytechnics….”
The ICT-enabling of higher education in a meaningful manner will enable Kerala to take full advantage of the inter-linking of all universities in the country under a scheme of the National Mission on Education through ICT.
