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K’taka govt unveils ₹195 cr digi-learning initiative
Bengaluru The Karnataka government on Wednesday launched its ambitious ₹195 crore Digi-learning initiative that it hopes will bridge the gap between urban and rural geographies among other hurdles faced by students pursuing collegiate education
Bengaluru The Karnataka government on Wednesday launched its ambitious ₹195 crore Digi-learning initiative that it hopes will bridge the gap between urban and rural geographies among other hurdles faced by students pursuing collegiate education.
The launch of technology-interventions like smart classes comes at a time when the Covid-19 pandemic-induced lockdown has forced a higher dependence on online classes across the country.
“These initiatives will be helpful to resolve the imbalances between offline & online, digital & physical, rural & urban, government & private, rich & poor and also english & native language barriers with respect to access for quality teaching and learning, besides providing a strong platform to implement National Education Policy effectively,” Dr CN Ashwath Naryan, the deputy chief minister of Karnataka said in a statement on Wednesday.
The state government also distributed 1,55,000 tablet PCs to students from across the state, amounting to ₹163 crore. The government also said that it had developed 2,500 smart classrooms at a cost of ₹27.77 crore and a Learning Management System (LMS) that cost ₹4.04 crore.
The decision to take online classes was necessitated by the rapid surge in Covid-19 cases, endangering the lives of students and others in Karnataka and other parts of the country.
However, a digital divide was seen in the rural areas where issues like affordability and connectivity added to the challenges of students who were forced to remain away from physical classes.
The PCs will be distributed to first-year students of 430 government first grade colleges, first and second year students of 87 government polytechnic colleges and the all first, second and third year students of 14 engineering colleges, Narayan said.
The department of higher education said that it had created around 3,05,000 materials of content, an online library with option for feedback rating, integrated student and teacher work diary and other measures as part of its reforms to the education sector.
The smart classrooms will be equipped with projectors, white board, android box, UPS and internet facilities to enable both offline and online classes, the government said.
The initiatives comes a day after the BS Yediyurappa government said that it is considering reopening higher education institutions in a phased manner after the technical advisory committee (TAC) submitted a report and recommendations on the imminent third wave of Covid-19 infections. Yediyurappa said that the decision will be based on the recommendations of the expert committee and following the vaccination of teachers and students.
The initiatives on Wednesday are said to benefit 25,000 teaching staff and around 5,00,000 students in state-run institutions. The other features include PPT, video and study material for each subject, multiple choice questions for assessment, analysis of student’s performance and other benefits.
The state government is also mulling introduction of CBSE and ICSE-like syllabus and assessment for students in primary and secondary education to mitigate challenges like assessing students without exams in extraordinary situations like this academic year.
The state government has cancelled exams for second-year pre university students and they will be graded on their performance in the previous year. However, the state government has decided to conduct at least two papers for class 10 in the third week of July.
