Union HRD Minister, Dr. M M Pallam Raju called upon the State Education Boards to take responsibility for improving the quality of education and related infrastructure in their areas. Launching e-content courseware on seven undergraduate subjects at Consortium for Educational Communication (CEC) premises in New Delhi, he stressed that there is urgent need for improving quality and for upgradation of infrastructure for enhancement of educational system in India.

Speaking on the occasion, Prof. H Devaraj, Vice Chairman, UGC laid emphasis on the new technology enabled delivery mechanism in education. “I have no doubt that that this is the beginning of an age of virtual world. Our education delivery mechanism should be ready to tackle the new situation that arises consequentially. The Consortium for Educational Communication has taken the lead to encrypt our education into a delivery mechanism that is future ready and it represents the future delivery mechanisms of education in India and worldwide,” he shared.

CEC, an Inter-University Centre of University Grants Commission (UGC) on electronic media launched e-content courseware on seven subjects viz. Anthropology, English, Hindi, Mathematics, Photography, Environmental Studies and History. E-content on Botany had been launched earlier.

CEC had initiated the production of e-content under the National Mission on Education through ICT (NME-ICT), a plan project of Ministry of Human Resource Development (MHRD), Govt. of India. It develops e-content courseware in various subjects as per the UGC model curricula for undergraduate students in collaboration with its 22 media centres. This is the digital content which could be transmitted over the computer network world wide and could be accessed over internet anywhere, anytime. These e-content modules are complete courseware which includes the topic video, its objective, full transcript, text, assignment, FAQs, references etc., available in easily downloadable format. Presently, CEC is engaged in developing e content on nearly 90 UG subjects.

The new CEC brochure was also launched at the event, which also saw the subjects’ flyers being unveiled. The Minister also had a web conferencing session with the Directors of the media centres.

Consortium for Educational Communication (CEC) is an Inter-University Centre, established by University Grants Commission (UGC), on 26th May 1993, under section 12(ccc) of its act of 1956. CEC as an autonomous centre, enjoys Central University status and is a nodal agency at national level, to address the higher education needs of the country through production and dissemination of educational programmes, by the way of the extensive use of ICT tools and various modes of communication such as TV, EduSat network and internet etc. CEC’s mandate is to engage in the production of curriculum and enrichment based educational material at large and its dissemination, through various ICT modes. It seeks to reach out especially to those remote, less accessible regions where quality educational avenues for the aspiring students are scanty.

Courtesy : PIB