National Mission On Education To Leverage ICT For Higher Education

As enterprises leverage collaboration tools to keep pace with changing business demands, the government is not lagging too far behind. It plans to leverage virtual connectivity to transform the higher education scenario in India. Arjun Singh, union minister of Human Resource Development, will launch the National Mission on Education through Information and Communication Technology on February 3, 2009, in Tirupati at the auditorium of Sri Venkateswara University.

The Department of Higher Education had realised the tremendous potential of ICT in the teaching and learning process as well as for enhancing the capacity and efficiency of the Open and Distance Learning (ODL) system by the use of appropriate ICT tools to make the learning interesting and easy through digitising the learning material thereby converting it to e-content and widening the access of learners to the said e-content. Considering the above, the department had conceptualised a pilot project namely ‘SAKSHAT’ – One Stop Education Portal, which was launched on October 30, 2006 by the then President of India, Dr Abdul Kalam.

Encouraged with the experience of the pilot project ‘SAKSHAT’, a web-based portal providing various services to the student community, it was decided to formulate a centrally sponsored scheme by the name ‘National Mission on Education through Information and Communication Technology’, henceforth called as ‘Mission’, to fully leverage the potential of ICT in teaching and learning process for the ultimate benefit of all learners in higher education sector. The interventions of Mission are to be delivered through the above said one-stop education portal ‘SAKSHAT’.

More from Biztech

Future Group - Reliance Retail Deal approved by CCI RBI ban on cryptocurrencies takes effect; prohibition could force investors to tap the black market

The proposed Mission broadly has the objective of ensuring connectivity of learners to the ‘World of Knowledge’ in cyberspace and to make them ‘Netizens’ in order to enhance their self-learning skills.

The Mission aims for:

(a) building connectivity and knowledge network among and within institutions of higher learning in the country with a view to achieving critical mass of researchers in any given field;

(b) spreading digital literacy for teacher empowerment;

(c) development of knowledge modules having the right content to take care of the aspirations of academic community and to address the personalised needs of the learners;

(d) standardisation and quality assurance of e-content to make them world class;

(e) research in the field of pedagogy for development of efficient learning modules for disparate groups of learners;

(f) making available e-knowledge content, free of cost to Indians;

(g) experimentation and field trial in the area of performance optimisation of low cost access devices for use of ICT in education;

(h) providing support for the creation of a Virtual Technological University;

(i) identification and nurturing of talents;

(j) certification of competencies of the human resources acquired either through

(k) formal or non-formal means and the evolution of a legal framework for it; and

(l) developing and maintaining the database with the profiles of human resources.