Address At The Inauguration Of The Conference On Edusat, Bangalore

EDUSAT:- A Knowledge Multiplier

I am delighted to participate in the Inauguration of the Conference on EDUSAT by ISRO and Association of the Indian Universities to appraise the EDUSAT initiative and to discuss about the various possibilities of utilizing the EDUSAT system for enriching the educational system of the universities, colleges and schools especially in the remote rural areas through universal tele-education. I greet the organizers, space experts, communication experts, Vice Chancellors and distinguished guests.

Literacy Missions & Actions

For any nation, the level and quality of education is one of the most significant parameters for development. In India, the total literacy has gone up over the years but the quality needs tremendous improvement. Education is not just the ability to read and write but also a complete process of human transformation and there are many miles to go to achieve the desired quantity and quality.

The synergy between education and learning has to be well perceived and operationalised. Education is essentially an aid to generate worthwhile learning, while learning itself is ultimately an individualized and lifelong process, whereby human transformation occurs within the individual. Learning has various forms such as: pre-learning, reinforcement of learning, classroom learning, individualized and independent learning of small groups or large masses, enrichment learning, self-learning and self-directed or self-managed learning. Final result of learning is the application of knowledge and skills for the benefit of the society, nation and the world.

EDUSAT ? the features and its possibilities

Many technological possibilities including different modes of interactivity have been considered for Satellite Educational Programme(SEP). Application of these different modes being a vital task will require a thorough planning and meticulous preparation. The prime step would be to examine and diagnose the prevalent situation in the process of learning and growth at both macro and micro levels and build the edifice of SEP for future development.

The prime objective of the EDUSAT programme is to provide support to education through low-cost ground segments and to reach the un-reached people of India to every nook and corner. EDUSAT (GSAT-3), the first satellite of the Education Satellite System, will be launched by the third flight of the indigenous launch vehicle GSLV in last quarter of 2004. The satellite is specially configured to have multiple beams covering different regions of India. This is a satellite operating in Ku band frequency facilitating the use of easy to handle small transmit/receive ground terminal. It provides communication coverage through five regional beams and a national beam. It will also provide full Indian coverage including the Indian islands in C-band.

This system will be primarily for school, college and higher level of education; however it will also support non-formal education. The scope of EDUSAT programme will be realized in three phases. I was told that, already the first phase of a pilot project using INSAT-3A/3B Ku band transponder is operational in an evaluation phase at certain educational institutions in Maharashtra, Karnataka and Madhya Pradesh for around 100 Virtual classrooms. Once the launch of EDUSAT takes place during the third quarter of 2004, the second phase may commence the semi-operational project with one uplink in each beam and about 100 to 200 classrooms per beam. This phase may cover two more states in addition to the three locations, which are running under pilot mode along with one national institution during the next 2 years. EDUSAT will be made fully operational in the third phase with the capacity of 30 uplinks and about 5000 remote terminals per uplink.

A multi-pronged approach for Tele-Education

A three-pronged approach is essential to make distance education programme viable and a successful proposition through the universal tele-education system to all remote parts of the country. The three components may be the Connectivity, Tele-Education System and the Quality Content Generation and deployment.

Connectivity:

EDUSAT is expected to provide one-lakh fifty thousand ground terminals in its full capacity. The other parts of the country have to be covered by providing Broadband and Wireless communication network in an integrated fashion. Terrestrial optical communication is becoming cost effective and can complement the space communication with its low cost, high bandwidth and networking capability. An integrated networked system comprising EDUSAT, Broadband and Wireless networks should provide a highway for reaching quality education to all parts of the country.

Tele-Education System:

Once we have the connectivity, then there should be a universal tele-education system in place for making full utilization of the connectivity to bring virtual classrooms in a multi class environment with seamless two-way interaction between the teachers and students in a collaborative environment. This system should not only enable the lecture delivered from the Studio at the university to reach any remote corner but also enable a good teacher in the remote area to provide multicast information to other participants of the programme.

A Tele-Education delivery system:

I would like to narrate our experience in tele-education piloted at Rashtrapati Bhavan for providing satellite connectivity for the PREVIK (President?s Virtual Institute for Knowledge) members. The connectivity is through V-SATs provided by ISRO, Voice Over-IP and Internet. In this platform, the live virtual studio environment is created and it will connect a number of remote locations and provides seamless, one to many connectivity, through multicasting mode in a collaborative environment. This also provides two-way connectivity. In this platform, I can give a presentation and address the remote locations, where the multimedia delivery is possible and also I can interact through various collaborative tools. I can refer any informational website from Internet to all the remote locations and can also delegate the remote expert to give a lecture to all those who are connected. We have also established the Digital Library and digitized around 2 million pages. I can search for a particular page and push the page to all the participants through this tele-education. It is an integrated solution, which makes me feel as if I am virtually connected to all participants in multiple locations. In the present context with respect to universities, EDUSAT provides the connectivity. An integrated Tele-education delivery mechanism is available and being used. What is required now is the generation of quality content for sharing and transmitting to remote students.

Quality Content Generation:

There are three components for education: lectures, laboratory and library. The content includes all the above three. Content can be generated in many ways. The first one is the assimilation of the subject by an expert teacher through research study of many books and articles leading to the generation of quality and creative content in a presentable format. The teacher presents in a unique and innovative way to make the content appealing and easily understandable to the students. The second form of content could be on a self-learning method by breaking down the content into a series of question answer models. Third may be from various books, which can be extracted through a digital library and presented just-in time to all the remote students. Fourth may be from Internet, where wealth of information is available. Teacher may search the information in the Internet and push the content live through the tele-education system.

The content should have supportive animations, which may even bring virtual laboratories and virtual immersion effects to the remote students. When the content is generated, it should be a sharable learning object across the nation and across all platforms. Some institutions and universities have already started developing their content. The content may be generated making use of the student?s creative and innovative thoughts under the guidance of the expert teachers as a group activity based on a pre-determined standard. This is possible where the capacity has been built by the educational institution into the student to teach while studying. The generated content through this process may be validated and deployed for delivery of lectures through tele-education system.

As an example, my lectures delivered during various functions are dynamically updated in our website. During the address many participants ask questions on several topics. The answers to these questions are also placed in the website as supplementary information. Similarly, the teachers after delivering the talk will also be asked a number of questions by the students. The proceedings of the questions & answers session can be added to the content document for enriching it. Now I would like to discuss, how the universities could make use of the tele-education system for creating Virtual University with a typical model.

Virtual University

It is time that we should start looking at the possibility of creating a Virtual University in India through networking of all the universities and other educational institutions for imparting universal tele-education. Virtual university will have the following tasks:

a) Act as a central hub of all universities, which are networked. 
b) Identify experts of national/international eminence in specialized areas and nominate institutions of eminence. 
c) Coordinate, organize, schedule and broadcast the lecture of specialists at a mutually convenient time to all participants. 
d) Record the live transmission of the lecture with interaction details in a data bank for easy access by participants for review learning. 
e) Digitize all the university libraries and make it available for seamless access by all the universities. 
f) The universities need to become learner centric.

This experiment across the country will provide a common platform for teaching in Schools, Colleges and Universities and even vocational courses. This will give equal emphasis on theory and experiments in spite of the fact that it will be done in the cyberspace. Such is the power of the technology and our understanding of it. This facility would also help in expansion of telecommunication and IT services. All this would lead to synergising the strengths of different universities in promoting quality education to our students in a cost effective manner.

Technological Breakthrough in Connectivity

A great majority of our people live in villages and small towns and it is often difficult for them to gain access to high quality education. On the other hand, it is also difficult and expensive to set up elaborate facilities in all villages and rural areas. There is a serious shortage of both infrastructure and human resource for teaching in the education sector throughout the country. Distance education can overcome the limitations of geographical inaccessibility of the area, economic status, gender divide and age difference and bring quality education to all through tele-education system. An Education Satellite System conceived by ISRO will be a boon in this context; it is envisaged that it will meet the challenge of number and quality by facilitating effective teachers training and curriculum based teaching in several regional languages, and also by providing access to quality resource persons especially in higher and professional education. It is expected to strengthen the distance education efforts initiated by various agencies and take education to every nook and corner of the country and provide access to new technologies. The Universities in particular will benefit by the Satellite Education Programme through synergy and connectivity between the various institutions at a relatively low cost.

Rural Prosperity through Connectivities (RUPCON)

The rural development model is based on providing connectivities such as physical, electronic and knowledge connectivity. Electronic Connectivity to the groups of villages through broadband, satellite and wireless for last mile connectivity would lead to Knowledge Connectivity through tele-education and tele-medicine. With EduSat?s support to RUPCON would revolutionise the education network for schools via tele-education network connected to Educational institutions and universities. The major focus would be on entrepreneurship, sustainable employment, economic growth and marketing (local vs. global).

Knowledge connectivity to rural India

Apart from their academic and research programmes, the universities can provide knowledge inputs to the farmers, artisans, craftsmen, small-scale industries, self-help groups and entrepreneurs through the EDUSAT special programme. The rural people will need information on the state-of-the-art technology relevant to their area/region for getting better yield from their land at reduced cost of farming. They will also like to know about the arrival of the monsoon and the action to be taken in case of monsoon delays. Through mobile tele-education networks, they can reach the rural people and educate them on the best farm mix suitable for their land and also advice them on multi-cropping and use of organic manure and pesticides. This will enable the farmers to understand the problem better and implement the solution in their fields.

Entrepreneurship:

Management departments of the universities may appraise the unemployed youth about the availability of business opportunities in the rural cluster through tele-education. The universities can undertake study projects on the various skills available in the rural sector along with the natural resources. Their expert teams can study the knowledge inputs, which can be injected to the traditional methods for improving the productivity, design and the aesthetics of the products for enabling its marketability in competing national and international markets. Also, they should arrange entrepreneurial skill training programmes for the youth who can undertake the leadership of such enterprises. These programmes can be run with the help of graduates, postgraduate students as part of their projects.

Establishing Village Panchayat Knowledge Centers

India has approximately 2.3 lakhs Village Panchayats. I visualize establishment of village knowledge centers in these Panchayats to empower the villagers with the knowledge and to act as a nodal center for knowledge connectivity for the villagers. These knowledge centers may be connected to the Universities through tele-education.

This Center may be equipped with 1000 books of different subjects. In addition the center can have facility for reading the text with an audio output so that people, who are unable to read, can benefit from the library. The knowledge center can also be used for collection, digital storage and dissemination of village specific information pertaining to agriculture, craftsmanship, arts, artisan techniques, informal judicial system practiced in village, based on values, local remedies for simple ailments, village stories with moral values, village history, village folk songs, village cultural traditions, traditional medicinal practices followed in villages and village marketing information and methods. Such information presently is being transmitted through word of mouth and with changing generation, it is being lost.

It is essential to preserve and carry forward this knowledge base for the benefit of future generations. This village panchayat knowledge centers will become a help desk and confidence builder for the villagers. In course of time, there could be inter panchayat information transfer leading to assured information flow to the needy. Universities can play an important role for establishing the village knowledge centre with the use of EduSat Ground segment.

Conclusion

Paradigm of computer has started moving towards any place, any time because of the exponential increase in the speed of the computer and network; it is immaterial where you are. If you democratize it, that is called democratization of knowledge, it is anyone, any time, any place. EduSat may be extremely helpful in making this shift possible and decreasing the digital divide.

EduSat and RUPCON should become an instrument for cultural enlightenment for our nation covering ancient, medieval and modern periods depicting cultural diversity and pluralism on the one hand and basic human unity and non-duality on the other. The ancient dictum of ?Vasudhaiva Kutumbakam? and the conditionality to promote a dialogue within the country and across nations throughout the world, around the concept of the world as one single human family, as it is relevant to achieve peace and prosperity in modern times, is yet another example under the Cultural Areas of Learning. The connectivity through EduSat will become an integrating factor for the whole nation.

I wish the Vice Chancellors and members of space community all success in their mission of promoting creative education through technology,
connecting the rural population.

May God bless you.

Questions asked by the different centres of the EDUSAT

Q.1. How can India emerge as a super power and what will be the role of education in this?

Ans. Education is the most important ingredient to make India a developed nation. We have to create a knowledge society through a well-structured value based education.

VTU, Belagaum

Q.2. If this century has to belong to India, what areas should we as a nation concentrate on?

Ans. We should concentrate on development of a knowledge society and our contribution to GDP growth from various sectors have to undergo a change. Large portion of our GDP contribution has to come from services and manufacturing sectors.

EDUSAT, Belagaum

Q.3. What should be the national vision beyond Moon Mission (Chandrayaan)?

Ans. To launch a solar power satellite and have a space factory.

EDUSAT, NITTEE

Q.4. Rural people of India are getting awareness of advanced technology and medicine. How do you ensure that the rural people gain access to this?

Ans. This has to be done through Telemedicine system and well equipped mobile clinics. EDUSAT, NITTEE.

Q.5. When can we have an education system where students will be able to choose the subjects, place and time of his own education?

Ans. When the EDUSAT programme and Universal Tele-education are fully functional, all students will be able to choose the subjects, place and time of their own education.

EDUSAT, Nasik

Q.6. Please tell us about the University of your dream?

Ans. It should be like University of Nalanda attracting students from all parts of the world.

EDUSAT, Nasik

Q.7. Students prefer professional courses to Pure Sciences, which reduces interest in Science & Research. What can be done about it?

Ans. Our entrepreneurship programme should build entrepreneurial capacity among all our students. This will enable students to pursue pure science course and become an entrepreneur.

EDUSAT, Ahmedabad

Q.8. How can the interaction between Universities and Industries be encouraged and increased?

Ans. Through virtual university where leaders of the industry could also offer classes to the students and the professors can offer professional consultancy to the industry.

EDUSAT, Ahmedabad

Q.9. Do you think technology can facilitate removal of inequality?

Ans. Yes.

EDUSAT, DSERT

Q.10. How can EDUSAT help in the national integration?

Ans. The very fact that the EDUSAT in its full form can have 1,50,000 ground segments in different parts of the country which will provide connectivity between different regions. Connectivity is the foundation for the national integration.

EDUSAT, DSERT