Blackboards in the sky

The government, in yet another ambitious scheme to bridge the digital divide and extend distance education across the country

The government, in yet another ambitious scheme to bridge the digital divide and extend distance education across the country, launched Sakshat 8212; a one-stop education portal three months ago. It became interactive recently 8212; on Republic Day, to be precise.

Meant essentially for students of the 11th and 12th standards, it enables them to ask teachers questions on their subject of choice and have them answered instantaneously in the 8216;Talk to the teacher8217; module of the portal. But there is a fundamental problem. Despite the hype about India being the second fastest growing economy in the world and rising internet connectivity, internet penetration is not more than 3 per cent. This has, however, not deterred the government.

To promote Sakshat, it has recently announced a plan to develop 10 laptops so that the poor can remain connected despite the country8217;s dismal infrastructure. For this phenomenal project, the technical expertise of the Indian Institute of Science, Bangalore IISc, and the Indian Institute of Technology IIT, Madras, has been sought. The 140 personal computer, of course, has already been developed by Masachussetts Institute of Technology MIT 8212; and the man behind it is Nicholas Negroponte, an MIT professor.

N.K. Sinha, a joint secretary in the ministry of human resources development and a key resource person for the project, has revealed that MIT offered India the 140 laptop. They were also told that the cost can be brought down by 50 in three years8217; time. Sinha believes that the key to bringing down prices is volume and argues that, since the cost of the chip is insignificant, the high volume of units that will be required in the country will bring down the manufacturing and overheads cost. IISc has already designed the prototype of the 100 PC and the cost is likely to go down to 10 in the next three years.

The distance education behemoth, the Indira Gandhi National Open University IGNOU, has been identified as the nodal agency for implementing the Sakshat project across the country. V. N. Rajashekaran Pillai, vice-chancellor IGNOU, explains that early indications are that Sakshat is doing well despite the 3 per cent internet connectivity. For those who have no digital literacy, a multi-media module has been developed, which will help a student log on and start working on the portal.

Making India a knowledge superpower is the underlying impetus for projects of this kind. The quest for digital literacy began way back in September 2004, when Edusat 8212; a 20-million dedicated satellite for education 8212; was launched. It was the baby of ISRO8217;s Developmental and Educational Communication Unit. In a country where about half the population is illiterate, policymakers felt that providing education to the masses via the conventional method was impossible. Edusat was meant to cater to the demand for an interactive, satellite-based distance education system in the country, especially in remote areas.

It was also expected to be used to successfully broadcast information and education programmes throughout the country in relevant local languages. All it required was a TV set through a low-set receiver costing 65. Pillai denies that IGNOU8217;s outreach 8212; covering 66 per cent of districts 8212; has largely been urban and that it has failed in its mission to provide distance education to the entire country.

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India has 604 districts and, according to government statistics, IGNOU has only 1200 study centres to cater to a population of 1 billion. There is therefore room for scepticism. Marmar Mukhopadhyay, former chairman, National Open School and former vice-president of the International Council of Distance Education, who was closely associated with the Edusat project, criticised Gyan Darshan 8212; IGNOU8217;s science education programme 8212; as a 8220;low quality8221; one. He pointed out that the aim of Edusat and satellite-based learning was to make teachers use computer simulation software and that they should have used all the software available to them to make learning creative. One of the reasons for the failure of Edusat project was that the supply of Satellite Interactive Terminal by the government agency ISRO8217;s business unit got blocked. It could not supply the terminals to all the institutions that needed it, as it could not meet the demand. Only IGNOU got to implement Edusat programmes 8212; whereas it should have been more broad-based.

This is a tragedy. The successful implementation of the Edusat project would have wiped out illiteracy by now and bridged the yawning digital divide between the rich and the poor in India. Because this has not happened, the government has now chosen to launch Sakshat in order to reach out to the masses yet again. Will it work? That remains the million-rupee question.