As part of the Gender development programmes of Kudumbashree Idukki District Mission, a new initiative named ‘ Grameena Vijnana Kendram is started at Vattavada with the ownership of Vattavada panchayath. The centre was inaugurated on 9 March 2019. The aim of the project is to start knowledge centres in the rural areas of the district. The uniqueness of the program is that the centre has the facility to conduct live online classes where teachers from any part of the world can take classes and interact with the students in the centre with the help of ‘tele classroom’ facility'.
The project is implemented as a common venture of Kudumbashree Gender Self Learning Programme under the ownership of Vattavada panchayath. Edyonet is the technology and teaching resource provider of the center. They provided the infrastructure, technical support and software for the functioning of the program. Kudumbashree Idukki District Mission, CDS, LSGD, EDYONET – Infopark, Grameen vidhya foundation are the stakeholders of the centre.
A visit to Vattavada by the District Programme Manager who is in charge of Gender and the Snehitha staff noticed that as many issues are prevailing in the area. Vattavada, being a remote village, faces the issues of lack of transport facilities, lack of educational facilities and financial difficulties. Education opens the door to the multiple possibilities/ opportunities across the world. The enquiry on how it would be possible to make services of experts available to different parts of the state resulted in the community education program through tele classroom. Kudumbashree in collaboration with EDYONET IT started a free online PSC coaching as the first step of the program. Around 60 students from Vattavada and 30 students from Devikulam Panchayath gets benefited through this coaching service. Weekly 3 hour online classes are provided to the students. This PSC coaching and spoken English class was started under the Vattavada GRC. Eminent teachers are giving classes through video conference. Now the students can receive classes from eminent faculties from anywhere without spending money for it. As it is live online classes, they can conduct discussions and clear their doubts as well. This technology is useful in multiple ways for the center in future.
The centre aims at organizing various programmes utilizing the possibilities of information technology and reach out diverse education opportunities to the socio economical and geographically marginalised spaces. The class are being conducted from the public teaching facility at Ernakulam. The subject experts will conduct the classes according to the convenience of students via specially arranged tele classroom that includes a projector, camera and speaker system. The students will be able to watch the classes in 50 “ television and interact through the system specifically designed for the purpose. The sessions for the registered students will be made available in the software and the classes will be provided according to the need. The gender resource person of the Kudumbashree Gender resource center in the Vattavada panchayath has the responsibility of co coordinating the program. It will emerge as a revolution in distance education.
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