32 education channels by Sept: Govt

Seema Kaul

Tribune News Service

New Delhi, July 24

Watching television will soon be edutainment for students across India who can now switch on the idiot box for lessons on performing arts, science, technology, law, medicine and agriculture.

The Swayam Prabha project involves 32 educational channels going on air by September to provide curriculum and content to Indians keen on lifelong learning, HRD Minister Prakash Javadekar said in a written reply in the Lok Sabha.

The channels will initially broadcast fresh content for four hours a day and subsequently give lessons in regional languages also. The four-hour content will be telecast six times a day allowing the student to choose the time of his/her convenience. Students will just need a set top box to receive them.

The channels will go on air by September and lessons will initially be in English. The plan is to include lessons in regional languages like Punjabi, Hindi, Bengali, Gujarati, Tamil, Telugu, Malayalam, Oriya, Kannada and Marathi.

“There will be recorded lectures from IITs as per schedule communicated 15 days in advance. The uplinking station is at the Bhaskaracharya Institute of Space Applications and Geo Informatics at Gandhinagar in Gujarat,” a senior ministry official said, adding the NCERT, IGNOU (vocational subjects), UGC and AICTE are the nodal institutes for the project.