Introduction:
EduSat supported Education: A revolution in Indian education scenario
For providing education to all, the Indian Parliament took a decision in the year 2001 whereby access to education was to be made mandatory for every Indian in the age group of 6 to 14 years by the year 2015. In order to achieve this a massive educational infrastructure is required considering the huge population of India. Towards this initiative, within a short period of less than two years, ISRO successfully designed, developed and launched a geo-stationary satellite on September 20, 2004, EduSat, dedicating it exclusively for the purpose of education dissemination. India is unique in this respect and the capability of the satellite is being used for providing consistent opportunities of education to all so that anyone at anytime and at any place could take part in this national mission. The satellite has multiple regional beams covering different parts of India, five Ku-band transponders with spot beams covering northern, north-eastern, eastern, southern and western regions of the country, a Ku-band transponder with its footprint covering the Indian mainland region and six C-band transponders with their footprints covering the entire country. The universalization of education had always been a high priority issue of the government but some 35 percent of India's billion-plus population is illiterate. To literate this 35 percent population, India will have to set up more than 10,000 new schools every year. Teaching this huge group through conventional methods is an uphill task. In this scenario, the capabilities of EduSat will bring revolution in the field of education of the country. The greatest advantage of satellite technology is to ensure point-to-point both way audio and video communication in between the teaching-end and learning-end located anywhere.
A number of projects for the utilization of EduSat at the elementary and higher education level have already been launched. The process of installation of a regional hub in each state has either been completed or is in implementation phase. Kerala has started virtual classes through EduSat in elementary education. All the engineering colleges of the Visveswaraiah Technological University in Karnataka are networked. The Y.B. Chavan State Open University at Nashik in Maharashtra and the Rajiv Gandhi Technical University in Madhya Pradesh are also covered by way of EduSat based connectivity. Recently the state government of Haryana has also inaugurated their school network consisting more than ten thousand receiving ends.
EduSat Utilization and IGNOU
Besides the EduSat supported connectivity, IGNOU has been utilizing C-Band national networks using INSAT-3A satellite of ISRO. IGNOU has a network of Satellite Interactive Terminals at 131 learner-end locations; these locations are well spread out covering the entire nation. Besides the use of this advanced technology in the field of higher education, IGNOU in collaboration with ISRO, MHRD and state governments started a project to provide the quality education to the students of Hindi speaking states by setting up a projected namely Rajiv Gandhi Project for EduSat Supported Elementary Education.
Rajiv Gandhi Project for EduSat Supported Elementary Education (RGPEEE)
RGPEEE is a collaborative project of IGNOU-ISRO-MHRD and several state governments which was inaugurated on December. 17, 2005 keeping in mind to provide value-added and ICT enabled education for the children at the elementary level of Hindi speaking states and support to achieve the complete literacy goal. The objectives of the set-up were as given below:
The pilot phase of the project was initiated targeting the least developed and most backward district Sidhi of Madhya Pradesh and four other adjoining districts of other states namely Vaishali of Bihar, Korea of Chhattisgarh and Sonbhadra of U.P. 700 Receive Only Terminals (RoTs) were provided to Sidhi and 50 each to the rest. The RGPEEE network works as a DTH network using the digital technology in Ku-band having national coverage with 3.8 m antenna and 16-watt power amplifier at the Hub. The Ku-band supported Hub and well facilitated recording studio for tele-lesson production is provided at the Prantiya Siksha Mahavidyalaya Campus, Jabalpur. It is also a major solar energy supported initiative of the nation providing solar photovoltaic power-supply with a functioning capacity of 2.5 sunless hours. The RGPEEE is transmitting quality tele-lessons for four hours since December 19, 2005 on regular basis. One of the unique features is that, the RGPEEE is inviting resource teachers, those are directly associated with the teaching activities at the school level. Now the network has been expanded to four more Hindi speaking states viz. Jharkhand, Uttarakhand, Haryana, Rajasthan, four more districts of Madhya Pradesh as well as some new blocks of Chhattisgarh, Bihar and Uttar Pradesh. Soon besides the existing one-way interacting facility (Receive Only Terminal), both way audio-video interaction facility (Satellite Interactive Terminals) will be available for the purpose of teachers’ training, feedback and on-line interaction purposes. The RGPEEE is also providing the contents to the different state governments for the partial fulfillment of their requirement of transmission in the regional network. Realizing the encouraging outcome of the project in its two years life span, it is decided to enhance the network providing more receiving ends to the schools of states under the network.