March 23, 2006 

Visvesvaraya Technological University (VTU), Belgaum, Karnataka, the first university to implement EDUSAT-based e-classes for technical education, has successfully completed 1000 sessions of lectures via EDUSAT. To mark the 1000th session, a special panel discussion was organised at DSERT Campus, Bangalore this morning (March 23, 2006) with the participation of Mr D H Shankara Murthy, Minister of Higher Education, Karnataka, Mrs Sobha Nambisan, Principal Secretary, Higher Education, Government of Karnataka, Mr A Bhaskaranarayana, Director, Satellite Communications Progarmme, ISRO, and Dr K Balaveera Reddy, Vice Chancellor, VTU. The panel also had interaction with the students via satellite to review the effectiveness of the programme so far and modifications required to tune improve the effectiveness further. A message from Mr G Madhavan Nair, was also broadcast to the students on the occasion.

VTU had initiated the pilot projects even before the launch of EDUSAT by using other INSAT satellites. Since the commissioning of EDUSAT network connecting all the 120 engineering colleges of VTU, classes are being conducted for about 8 hours daily. The students spread across Karnataka state have benefited immensely by listening and interacting with some of the best subject experts. Every semester, 7 to 8 subjects are taught. So far, three programmes covering 669 sessions and 331 sessions under the on-going fourth programme have been completed. The subjects covering various disciplines like civil, mechanical, electronics, electrical, computer science and information science are being transmitted live everyday from VTU Studio situated at DSERT campus at Bangalore.

VTU has also used the EDUSAT network for interaction between the talented youth and the chief executives of the various corporate entities, which has been well received and well attended. This has enabled the industries to spot the talented students from the universities. VTU's experience on the effectiveness of satellite based technical education in terms of equipment, classroom infrastructure and programme content will be useful for EDUSAT project that is being implemented in other parts of the country.

In his message on the occasion of the 1000th live session using EDUSAT, Dr G Madhavan Nair, Chairman, ISRO congratulated VTU for being the first to implement EDUSAT programme and said that VTU can become a role-model for other institutions of higher education to implement EDUSAT based classrooms across the country. He added that EDUSAT network could be used for administrative purposes and even for conducting online examinations and evaluations. He also said that possibility exists to upgrade technology to enable interconnectivity between national and regional beams of EDUSAT for conducting classes across the country. "While ISRO has been striving to use space technology for efficient societal benefits, it should be the user community, which has to come forward and use the advanced technology to improve the efficiency and capacity of the existing conventional systems like communication, resource monitoring, education, health and others" he said.

Participating in the panel discussion, Mr D H Shankara Murthy, expressed his happiness about the functioning of the VTU EDUSAT network and said that the Karnataka Government will provide all necessary support for extending this facility. He also added that the Government is proposing to set up a separate directorate for technology enabled education to adopt the latest technology at all levels of education. Mrs Sobha Nambisan said that in the present context of severe paucity of well trained teachers, VTU EDUSAT is a boon to share the knowledge of expert teachers by the large student community in the state. Mr A Bhaskaranarayana said that VTU Project has successfully demonstrated the efficacy of satellite-based technology for technical education. He also said that with the fast pace of technological evolution, it is very difficult for the teachers to keep themselves updated on the latest and EDUSAT can help in bringing the best of lecturers to teach simultaneously students of all colleges of VTU. Dr K Balaveera Reddy thanked ISRO for providing necessary satellite bandwidth and other facilities for the VTU EDUSAT Project and he said that VTU is going ahead to implement various other projects like technology enabled education, e-learning, e-campus, etc.

Karnataka is one of the pioneering states in using space-based technology for sustainable benefits like primary education in Chamarajanagar District, telemedicine network connecting super specialty hospitals to rural and district hospitals and use of remote sensing satellites for monitoring and evaluation of watersheds.

EDUSAT, launched on September 2, 2004, is configured for audio-visual medium employing digital interactive classroom lessons and multimedia content. The ground coverages are specially configured to cater to the educational requirements of the country. The EDUSAT programme is primarily for school, college and higher levels of education and to support non-formal education. EDUSAT pilot projects were taken up in Karnataka, Maharashtra and Madhya Pradesh ahead of EDUSAT launch using INSAT-3B, covering Visveswaraya Technological University in Karnataka, Y B Chavan Open University in Maharashtra and Rajiv Gandhi Technical University in Madhya Pradesh.

In the present semi-operational phase of EDUSAT programme, Karnataka Primary Education Project under 'Sarva Shiksha Abhiyan' covering 885 primary schools has been made operational using the southern regional beam of EDUSAT. Networks for IGNOU, CEC/ University Grants Commission (UGC), CIT/National Council of Educational Research and Training (NCERT), All India Council for Technical Education (AICTE) and Department of Science and Technology (DST) have been set up using the national beam. Interactive networks for Kerala and Tamil Nadu are operational and extensively used for teachers' training and other training programmes using regional beam.