The National Mission in Education through Information and Communication Technology (NMEICT) is an ambitious project aimed at providing digital education available for many. The effort is to erase the divide between haves and have-nots (access to quality education).
Those educational institutes being part of it and not having good faculty can get help from it. BSNL Additional General Manager K. Rajasekhar is national coordinator for the project and he was recently in Hyderabad branch of GITAM University located at Rudraram. Excerpts from an interview with him:
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The project is aimed at providing quality education for a large number of students in 400 universities by the best teachers. The Ministry of Human Resources and Development (MHRD) has invested about Rs.3,200 crore on the project. We are connecting universities and colleges to exchange information.
How many universities and colleges were connected ?
So far 389 universities across the nation have been connected and 23,000 colleges out of the total 32,000 colleges expected to get connected in the last three years. National Programme on Technology Enhanced Learning (NPTEL) has also become part of it and researchers are using most of it. It may take another one year to connect all the expected number of universities and colleges. The video recorded lessons by Prof. Mangala Sunder Krishnan of IIT Madras are most sought after by researchers. Recorded lessons from IITs and IISC are also available in NPTEL.
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How many students are using it as of now?
We cannot say that directly but based on the hits received we may put the figure at about three crore, may be they are students or researchers. GITAM University has been using it at the optimum level.