Proliferation of ICT in Education –
Major Govt. Initiatives - Challenges
Dr. B. K. Murthy
Director & Head
National Knowledge Network Division
Ministry of Communications and IT
Govt. of India
Presentation at Nagpur, 11th June, 2011
Key Factors of Knowledge Economy
Govt. role is
to act as a
catalyst
2
Challenges: Digital Students
By age 21, the average college student
would have spent:
10,000 hours video games
200,000 emails
20,000 hours TV
10,000 hours cell phone
10,000 hours of PC/Internet usage
Under 5,000 hours reading
3
Challenges for Technology
Countrywide classrooms? Various Tools & Technologies
Sharing of Educational resources on the Grid/Cloud
Various Gadgets
High end Workstations to low cost access devices
Content for all:
Multimodal, Multilingual, locale specific, Just-in-time
Creation of Closed User Groups:
Online Collaborative Research
Open Source Drug Discovery/Design/Engg.
Network protocols to support various gadgets
Knowledge Centers to Host various portals
Network Security/QoS to cater to all types of traffic
emails/chatting/lectures/telemedicine/VC/e-Gov. etc. on the
same Backbone??
Challenges – Social
The
The
The
The
The
The
challenge of numbers/Scalability
challenge of Quality
challenge of access/Reliability
Challenge of Sustainability/affordability
Challenge of Inclusiveness
challenge of course management
Guiding a student through a curriculum
Tapping the right content from the right source
But the most important of all……..
The challenge of the mind-set !!!
5
ICT in Education: Role of MCIT/DIT
Initiate Pilots in frontier areas before the
formal system responds
Courses on Microprocessor in late 70s
UG/PG Courses in ICT in early 80s
Establishment of ERNET, CDAC, DOEACC in late 80s
Language Computing/Learning Material Development in
Emerging Technologies in early 90s
E-learning activities: Courseware for MS (BITS Pilani), ADIT of
IGNOU etc. in late 90s
Currently UG/PG Courses on VLSI Design/Embedded Systems
Design/Information Security
Technology Innovation Promotion
Being initiated and nurtured till the formal system takes over
and now establishment of National Knowledge Network
ICT in Education: Major Govt. Initiatives
Department of IT, Ministry of Comm. & IT
Establishment of National Knowledge Network
National Skill Development Initiative
Ministry of HRD
National Programme on Technology Enhanced
Learning (NPTEL)
About 400 courses (40 hours each) in Engineering
& Technology developed by faculties of IITs/IISc
and available for free Usage by Tier II and Tier III
colleges
National Mission on Education Through ICT
ICT@Schools
7
National Knowledge Network
Objective
To interconnect all Institutions of higher learning
and Research for knowledge sharing and
collaborative Research across the country with a
high speed data communication network.
Design Philosophy
To build a scalable network, which can expand
both in the geographical coverage and Speed.
To be a common Network Backbone like national
highway, wherein different categories of users shall
be supported.
8
Features of the NKN
Distribution
EDGE
EDGE
Distribution
Network consists of an ultra-high speed Core
~10Gbps & ~ 1500 nodes.
A distribution layer atEDGE
appropriate speeds.
The participating institutions
can directly
Distribution
connect to the NKN at speeds between
100Mbps to 1 Gbps
connect to the distribution
Distribution layer through a last
mile connectivity bandwidth (Edge nodes).
Distribution
EDGE
9
Educational
Institutions
Cert-IN
Research Labs
CSIR/DAE/ISRO/ICAR
EDUSAT
National
Internet
Exchange
Points (NIXI)
NKN
MPLS
Clouds
INTERNET
Broad Band
Clouds
Connections to
Global Networks
(e.g. GEANT)
National / State
Data Centers
10
•To create CORE for NKN
Final Phase at the earliest.
•Backbone 2.5G to begin
with soon 10G
•This provides the required
redundancy and availability
of NKN CORE.
•Gateways at Mumbai &
Chennai apart from Delhi
Hyderabad
• Complete rollout in 2-3 yrs
• Implementation by NIC
Current Status
20 PoPs were set up across the country
200+ Institutions of Higher Learning were connected
Virtual Class Rooms in 26 IITs, ISERs
Inaugurated by the Hon’ble President of India on
April 9, 2009
Final Phase: 20-25 PoPs, 600+ secondary PoPs, 1500
core institutions (400+ universities, R&D labs) to be
connected
Traffic from the affiliated colleges/centers/institutions
are aggregated through MPLS-VPN to connect to NKN
12
National Mission on Education through ICT
Vision
Catering to the learning needs and providing a one
stop solution to all the requirements of the learning
community.
Objectives
Development of knowledge modules & the right
content
Research in the field of pedagogy
Standardization and quality assurance of content
Spreading digital literacy for teacher empowerment
Providing support for the creation of virtual
technological universities;
13
Connectivity at Institution Level
20,000 Colleges, each with 20 BB VPN
connections
High Speed LANs in Universities each
having 400 nodes
Connectivity ~ 1Gbps to universities
NMEICT-NKN Interconnection, 1GB each
about 10-15 Locations
Internet connectivity to BSNL VPN cloud.
NMEICT Connecting: Universities
INTERNET
NKN CLOUD
BSNL Cloud
UNIV#1
UNIV #2
UNIV #3
Universities merging with NKN
INTERNET
NKN CLOUD
BSNL Cloud
UNIV#1
UNIV #2
UNIV #3
Universities Aggregating Affiliated Colleges
INTERNET
Aggregate Traffic
to NKN
NKN CLOUD
BSNL Cloud
MPLS CLOUDc
UNIV#1
UNIV #2
C
o
l
l
e
g
e
s
ICT @ Schools
Scheme of MHRD launched in 2004 and now
Revised in 2010
Coverage: All Govt./Govt. aided Higher
Secondary/Secondary schools
Target is to cover about 100,000 schools by 2012
Objectives:
Establish enabling environment to promote usage
of ICT in an inclusive manner
• Providing infrastructure & connectivity
Promote development and dissemination of econtent in regional language
To promote ICT tools for distance education
18
National Skill Development Initiative
Government of India has approved the
‘Coordinated Action of Skill Development’:
Three tier structure set up:
Prime Minister’s National Council on Skill
Development
National Skill Development Coordination Board
National Skill Development Corporation
National Skill Development Policy
announced
To create a pool of 500 million trained persons
by the year 2022.
DITs Target in NSDI is 10 million in ICT by 2022
500 million IT literates by 2022
19
DIT’s Initiatives for Skill Development in IECT
Through a 3 pronged strategy:

Scaling up of capacities of DOEACC Society to train 1 crore
persons by 2022.
- To cover the entire spectrum of Training & Education starting from
certificate level to Doctoral level (both Formal as well Non-Formal)

Scaling up of capacities of CDAC to train ~ 7 lakh persons
by 2022.
- High end courses, close to Industry needs, quick cycle time for
introduction of New Courses to meet emerging needs

Financial Assistance to States/UTs for setting up of ICT
Academies in each State/UTs
- To ensure quality faculty who are current with the latest development in
IECT sector
ICT infrastructure Connecting Global
n
Internet 2
GEANT
3
Internet
Servers
Database Servers
Application Servers
2
UNIVERSITY
Servers
Web Servers
1
Servers
VPN/IP MPLS
Network
10 Gigabit GRID
Connecting
Institutions on
common
Network
colleges
Servers Pool
Schools
VPN/Firewall/ IPS
Central Data Centre
Wi-Fi Enabled Virtual Classroom
Backbone
Hosting Content &
Applications of different
disciplines
21
Multi Modal Delivery gives Rainbow effect
Delivery
Compliances &
Conformance
Multi Modal
Content
Multi Modal/Multi
Lingual Delivery
Standards
LMS/ Authoring
Tools
Colleges/
Universities
Local
Language
Support tools
Learning
Models
Tools & Technologies
National
National
Knowledge
Mission on
Network
Education
Infrastructure
Compression
& Streaming
Administrators/Govt.
Ubiquitous Learning
Students/Learners
Blended Learning
Authors/Experts
Output
Instructors
Virtual Class Rooms
Mobile Learning
CBT/WBT
Class Room Teaching
Integrated Learning
Internet/
Broadband
22
Summary
Missions such as NKN & NME-ICT require enormous
determination and vision continuity.
The philosophy is “Encourage, Enable, Enrich, and
Empower” the users.
Collaboration, Interaction and Sharing are Important
Paradigms for Quality Education and Innovation,
Government would act as Catalyst.
ICT is expected to bring in revolution in Education the
way Text books revolutionised a few hundred years ago
Ultimately it is the Mindset of the stake holders requires
a paradigm shift – ICT is only a tool it is not a
replacement
Laptops can not replace Headtops
23
bkm@mit.gov.in
24