(a) whether there is a proposal under implementation to provide high speed broadband connectivity to universities and colleges and development of e-content in various disciplines;
(b) if so, the details thereof;
(c) the status of the National Mission of Education through Information and Communication Technology (NMEICT);
(d) the details of the projects envisaged and the projects completed under the mission during the XI Plan;
(e) the details of the projects not completed and the reasons therefor;
(f) the details of the Central assistance provided by the Central Government to each State to implement the aforesaid scheme during the last three years;
(g) if not, the reasons therefor; and
(h) the steps taken by the Central Government to provide equal opportunities to students in all States? |
| ANSWER |
MINISTER OF STATE IN THE MINISTRY OF HUMAN RESOURCE DEVELOPMENT (DR. D. PURANDESWARI)
(a)&(b) Yes, Sir. Under the National Mission on Education through Information and Communication Technology (NMEICT), it has been envisaged to provide 15-20 VPNoBB connection of 512 Kbps speed to over 25000+ colleges and 2000 polytechnics and 1 Gbps connectivity to 419 universities/ institutions of national importance in the country. The Mission also aims to create high quality e-content on various subjects of humanities, social science, engineering etc. Consortium of Educational Communication (CEC) has been tasked for generation of 19 UG subjects in phase-I and 68 subjects in phase-II. E-content generation activity for 77 PG subjects has been assigned to University Grants Commission (UGC). Under the NPTEL project IIT, Madras, has undertaken to additionally generate online Web and Video courses for 996 courses in various disciplines of engineering, science and humanities.
(c) to (e). The NMEICT scheme was approved by the Government of India on 2nd January, 2009. This scheme has been envisaged as a Centrally Sponsored Scheme to leverage the potential of Information and Communication Technology (ICT), in providing high quality personalized and interactive knowledge module over the internet/intranet for all the learners in higher education institutions in anytime anywhere mode. The Mission has two major components viz.
(i) content generation; and
(ii) providing connectivity, along with provision for access devices, to institutions and learners. The Mission also envisages an appropriate pedagogy for e-learning, providing e-books and e-journals free to the learners, providing flexibility of performing experiments through virtual laboratories, online testing and certification, online availability of teachers to guide and mentor learners, training and empowerment of teachers to effectively use the new method of teaching learning, standardization of quality assurance of contents & certification/ 7automation of certification, development of language converter and translation tool kit, development of software controlled hardware programming for robotics & other crucial area, adaption and deployment of open source simulation packages, development of ERP system for educational institutions, conversion of available content in various regional languages, provision of bulk storage servers at 100 premier institutions, provision of 1000 DTH channels etc. To accomplish these, a number of the projects have been sanctioned to various institutions in the country. As these projects have been sanctioned at different point of time during the XI Plan period, these are at various stages of completion.
(f) to (h) Under the NMEICT scheme no central assistance has been provided by the Central Government directly to States to implement the schemes. However, as provided in the Mission document, funds have been released to universities/university level institutions of the country for various projects. For connectivity to universities and colleges, central share of 75% of the cost is directly released to the BSNL( implementing agency) with the stipulation that the balance 25% of the cost would be deposited by the concerned institution (or state Government on their behalf) directly to BSNL. Under the scheme both public and private institutions of the country have been treated alike. E-contents generated are available free of cost to the learners hence, equal opportunities to all students are available. |
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