INDIA: Government mulls ICTs in higher education

20 April 2008

Higher education delivery in India could be soon in for an overhaul, with the government mulling heavy deployment of information and communication technologies in the sector, reports The Economic Times. An ambitious project of the Ministry of Human Resource Development mooted a year ago, the National Mission in Education through ICT, has been given the green light by state-run Bharat Sanchar Nigam Ltd, which has agreed to dovetail its infrastructure and provide technological backbone to the project. The e-learning programme is heavily dependent on the use of technology for its success and hence the green signal was critical for its roll out.

Responding to a ministry circular seeking comments from concerned ministries, the Department of Telecom has said that the immediate connectivity requirement of educational institutions under the project can be met by BSNL, by leveraging its countrywide Multi Protocol Label Switching infrastructure and broadband access network. More than 1,100 towns and cities are covered by the network and it is expanding.

The project envisages that all institutions of higher learning would be networked through broadband connectivity. It will cover 18,000 colleges and has proposed to keep e-books and e-journals in digital libraries which could be delivered to learners electronically.
Full report on The Economic Times site

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