IIT-M launches rural technology centres in Tamil Nadu

The prestigious Indian Institute of Technology, Madras (IIT-M) Pravartak Technologies Foundation has partnered with Asha for Education to launch rural technology centres in Tamil Nadu to take computer science literacy to remote, rural government schools and enable tapping of the potential of school students in rural areas.

As part of the partnership, two Asha-IIT Madras Pravartak Rural Technology Centres were inaugurated on Friday in Kanakamma Chathram and Seethanjeri villages in Tiruvallur district just outside Chennai. The two institutes plan to launch more such centres near government schools this year.

The centres, which will train students of classes 9 to 12, is being funded by IIT Madras Pravartak Technologies Foundation.

“IIT Madras is committed to working towards providing access to quality education and technology to students belonging to rural areas of our Country. The setting up of these two rural technology centres mark the beginning of our journey,” Prof. V. Kamakoti, Director, IIT-M, said.

Asha for Education is a worldwide action group formed to catalyse socio-economic change in India through the education of underprivileged children, the IIT-M said, adding that the group uses advanced block-based programming tools such as ‘Scratch’ from Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) and ‘Blockly’ from Google to teach programming.

“We wanted to open the centres close to higher secondary schools so that the students will be able to attend courses in our centres in the evening after their school hours. Most children do not get any opportunity to learn computer science and other technologies,” Rajaraman Krishnan from Asha For Education said.

Elaborating on the project, R. Divya, a teacher from Asha For Education who works at the Rural Technology Centre in Seethanjeri said the centres are a great opportunity for rural students to learn computers.

Based on the assessment of students’ levels, the Asha Team is planning to start two courses on Basic Digital Literacy and Basics of Programming. While instructions will be provided for two-thirds of the course, one-third of the course will be left for project work where the children create a presentation or software program of their own, the IIT-M said. These two basic courses will be followed up with other Code.org courses on animation, webpage design, and hardware-based programming, among others, the institute said.

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