INTRODUCTION
Increasing
of population is very high in the last couple decades. At a time, the government
will not give the formal education (regular education) for all. So, the government
introduce the distance education programme.
But, the distance education is not
reaching the rural and remote areas. The Edusat have helped to the distance
education for reach the remote area also. Distance education is becoming
popular over the years. Because the students have studied at any time, any
place, and any courses and it will give equal opportunity for all.
DISTANCE EDUCATION
Distance education or distance learning, is a field of education that focuses on
teaching methods and technology with the aim of delivering teaching, often on
an individual basis, to students who are not physically present in a
traditional educational setting such as a classroom. Distance education is an
essential and growing trend in India. Reaching a participant at any remote
location in the country to impart knowledge is the goal for such initiatives.
EDUSAT
Satellites can
establish the connectivity between urban educational institutions with adequate
infrastructure quality education and the large number of rural and semi-urban
educational institutions that lack the necessary infrastructure. Besides
supporting formal education, a satellite system can facilitate the dissemination
of knowledge to the rural and remote population about important aspects like
health, hygiene and personality development and allow professionals to update
their knowledge base as well. Thus, in spite of limited trained and skilled
teachers, the aspirations of the growing student population at all levels can
be met through the concept of tele-education.
EDUSAT or GSAT-3
was launched in September by the Indian space research organization. EDUSAT is
the first Indian communication satellite built exclusively to serve the
educational sector. It is mainly intended meet the demand for an interactive
satellite based distance education system for the country. September 20, 2004,
India’s Geosynchronous Satellite launch vehicle, GSLV successively launched
EDUSAT the country’s first thematic satellite dedicated exclusively for
educational services, in to a Geosynchronous Transfer Orbit (GTO) from Satish
Dhawan space centre SHAR (SDSC SHAR), Sriharikota. It was the first operational
flight of GSLV, carrying the 1950 kg EDUSAT, lifted off from Sriharikota at
4:01 P.M, about seventeen minutes after lift off, EDUSAT was successfully
placed in GTO. EDUSAT was put into orbit at 1014 seconds about 5000 km away
from Sriharikota. EDUSAT was developed by ISRO satellite centre, Bangalore.
It is a
collaborative project of Ministry of Human Resource Development (MHRD) and
Department of space Indian Space Research Organization (ISRO).
Edusat will be implemented
through the following institutions:
IGNOU (Indira
Gandhi National Open University) Nodal Institution
AICTE (All Indian
Council For Technical Education)
ICAR (Indian
Council Of Agricultural Research)
NCERT (National
Council of Educational Research And Training)
UGC (University
Grants Commission)
WHY
EDUSAT BASED TRAINING?
Contact based
training though advantageous and beneficial, is not always possible for many to
attend due to time limitations, financial constraints and importantly day-today
commitments at work place. There are many types of training courses, which can
be attended from distance with different types of technology and tools. The
first among them is distance education (correspondence courses) supported
either with or without study centers. The next one is “Internet based courses”
replacing the conventional correspondence courses. The advanced type of courses
are “e-learning” where the student can avail the content of the course through
the internet, stream the lectures using the internet and have interaction with
teachers on a specified date. They can be provided FAQs (Frequently Asked
Questions) and quiz materials for easy learning. The students can appear at
examinations on specified date and location.
The EDUSAT based
training also follows more or less e-learning method and provides direct
interaction with the teacher/expert when the lecture is delivered using EDUSAT
satellite communication. It is advantageous because of its good quality
reception and interactions are not constrained due to bandwidth problems of
Internet
USES OF EDUSAT
EDUSAT has started impacting the way in which distance
education is carried out for teacher training and for providing support to
remote classrooms.
The Department of Space has activated one National Hub
to support national level networks. The initial focus of EDUSAT use has been on
teacher training at the BRCs.
The SSA supports EDUSAT initiatives in seven states:
Madhya Pradesh, Chattisgarh, Bihar and Uttar Pradesh, and Tamil Nadu, Karnataka
and Haryana. In the first group of four states, the Rajiv Gandhi Project for Edusat
supported Elementary Education (RGPESEE) is in its pilot phase. One district in
each state has been taken up for the creation of infrastructure in schools and
academic support structures to receive satellite signals and for the
development of educational content.
Distance Education Support
for Schooling and Social Change in Andhra Pradesh through EDUSAT
Edusat is a project implemented in collaboration with
the Indian Space Research Organization (ISRO) and the DSERT, Karnataka. Its
objective is to provide satellite-based television programs as a supplement to
classroom teaching and textbooks.
The main
purpose is to provide education to all people primarily children from remotes
areas of the country who cannot go to school or colleges.
In July
2005 former President A.P.J. Kalam
inaugurated
the first phase of Edusat operations by connecting 15
teacher training centres and 50 government schools in Kerala. Since then, this
satellite-based learning programme has expanded to cover a large number of
schools. Institutions like IGNOU, UGC, IITs, NIOS, and NCERT are among the many
that benefit from the Edusat facility.
Top
engineering colleges were launched the tele-education services by ISRO and
IIT-Bombay. This initiative offers 13 fully-fledged degree courses of 50
engineering colleges country-wide with the Visvesvaraya Technological
University, Karnataka, becoming the largest satellite connected technical
university in India with all its 113 engineering colleges and 120,000 students
connected by satellite.
Conclusion
At the
ground level, at IGNOU, video lessons are being recorded by teachers in the
name of EduSat religiously without questioning its value and purpose. These
lessons are supposed to be 2-way interactive sessions. In reality, there is
hardly any interaction as the systems are either not functional or not in
place. Thus, the recordings being done are only ‘talking heads’, which
educational technologists and media educators sincerely avoided all these
years. There is also another serious pedagogic issue. This is related to
distance education, which is essentially asynchronous learning, where teaching
and learning takes place at different time. Of course, there is also scope for
occasional face-to-face interaction (synchounous). But, with the EduSat, are we
unconsciously moving towards making distance education synchronous? Are we
predominantly thinking that distance education should have synchronous
interaction? If so, how is it planned for in the educational design? How are we
planning for the students to use the system? How to bring them to these so
called interactive EduSat sessions – that can only be accessed at a place
having SIT or TOR. Not being workplace-based or home-based is a serious
impediment of the present system of planning, thinking and technology.
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