College lectures through 50 free-to-air channels soon

Students of higher education across the country will be able to listen to the best teachers of their subjects by turning on the television, as the Ministry of Human Resource Development (MHRD) is preparing to launch 50 satellite channels to offer contents of almost all the subjects taught in colleges.

“The preparations (for the project) are underway and the channels are likely to be launched in 4-5 months,” sources in the Ministry told Deccan Herald.

The 24x7, free-to-air channels will broadcast lectures by “outstanding teachers” through 150 ‘teaching ends’ being established at leading institutes in the country. The lectures are both live and recorded.

The lectures will be supplemented with multimedia materials and students will have opportunity to ask questions “through video conferencing, mobile, land line, SMS, e-mail and get instantaneous reply from the teacher,” a Ministry official said.

Ministry officials also believe that the DTH educational programmes can potentially be viewed over 165 million TV sets and will benefit more than 67 per cent of the population.
Officials involved in the project also believe that it will help improve the country’s Gross Enrolment of Ratio (GER), which currently stands at 14 per cent against the global average of 23 per cent.

“This is the most cost effective way of delivering educational content. This has the potential to revolutionise education system across the country,” a Ministry official said.
The MHRD’s plans to launch the channels hit a roadblock two years ago, following objections by Information & Broadcasting Ministry on the grounds that channels can only be launched by privately registered companies under the Companies Act.

But it was put back to project mode, thanks to clarifications by the Law Ministry which said the MHRD can launch channels with a no objection certificate from the I&B ministry, as education is recognised as a special sector under the satcom policy of the Department of Space.