National Education Mission launched:

National Education Mission launched:

Minister for Human Resources Development Arjun Singh formally launched the “National Mission on Education through Information and Communication Technology”, a Rs.4, 700-crore ambitious project to provide online educational content to the remotest part of the country, at the SVU auditorium at Tirupati on Tuesday. Terrestrial and satellite connectivity for e-classrooms will be provided under the mission that facilitates live interaction with professors, putting virtual laboratories in place and helps one access e-books through the “Sakshat” web portal. Ten thousand university departments and 20,000 other institutions of higher learning are expected to be provided network connectivity, beginning with 5 Mbps each, for which the Central government bears 75 p.c. of the connectivity charges for five years Mr.Arjun Singh said that the selection of the abode of Lord Venkateswara for the launch was not accidental, as he had wanted divine intervention to ensure the project’s success. Resources were never a constraint for meeting the educational needs of the country, he said. Union Minister of State for HRD D. Purandeswari hoped to see a rise in the Gross Enrolment Ratio (GER) by at least 5 p.c. by the end of the XI Plan period due to this initiative.