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The launch of e-Vidya Bharati programme would be tremendous for University of Madras
Posted on: 19/Sep/2018 10:04:02 AM
Last week the launch of e-VidyaBharati and e-AarogyaBharati (e-VBAB) by the ministry of external affairs grabbed many eyeballs and it was spoken highly by many. This is said to be beneficial for the University of Madras or MU. This MU doesn’t have enough cash and is staring a financial crisis now due to the setback in offering distance education programmes. It is now said that the launch of above mentioned programmes would bring money to University of Madras. It is known that pan African e-Network project was implemented from 2009 till 2017 and this e-VBAB project is an extension and phase-2 of the above mentioned project. One important point is in as many as in 48 countries, tele-education project was implemented in the first phase.
According to the sources it is clear that MU is one of the five partner educational institutions in implementing this project. The superb piece of information is University of Madras would get an amount of Rs 5 crores to Rs 10 crores per year for a period of 5 years. As many as 4000 students belonging to African countries would be benefited by this e-VBAB Network Project every year as free tele-education courses would be provided to them. It is important to mention that this project would be funded by government of India for the entire duration. Many African hospitals would also be benefited as tele-medicine facilities would be provided to them.
According to V. Bharathi Harishankar who is the head of the department of women studies and coordinator of pan African e-Network Project, University of Madras, the first phase has been completed successfully and the MU is gearing up for the second phase now. She later spoke about how as many as 1813 students belonging to many African nations like Rwanda, Somalia, Egypt, Sudan etc have completed MSc(Information Technology) and BBA courses. She added that the courses were conducted in 5 batches. This head of the department of women studies later threw light on how in the first phase MU offered only 2 courses and how in the second phase it would offer many programmes to the students. It is superb to note that the programmes offered by MU are highly popular among African students. Under this e-VidyaBharati programme, apart from MU other universities like Delhi University, BITS Pilani, IGNOU and Amity University would also offer courses for the students of Africa.
Each institution under this project could get an amount up to Rs 10 crores per year as the central government would offer scholarships to the African students. As per the sources it is clear that the distance education programmes have got territorial restrictions but online educational programmes do have this restriction and the courses could be offered to students in any part of the world. Finally it would increase the revenue of the university.
According to vice-chancellor, University of Madras, Mr. P. Duraiswamy, MU has pioneered in providing online educational courses. He then spoke about how under the newly launched Centre for Web Based Learning, both the pan African e-Network project as well as virtual university would be brought and how it would be superb.
MEA or ministry of external affairs and TCIL or Telecommunication Consultants India Ltd have entered into an agreement for the implementation of e-VidyaBharati and e-AarogyaBharati(e-VBAB) network project i in Africa last week.
