Information & Communication Technology popularly known as ICT is a well known initiative across the globe to digitalise information and communication in every aspect. The Government of Karnataka is taking a leadership position in promoting ICT in the education space by bringing along all the higher education systems across the state under the broad category of Higher Education Department (H.E.D.) in their marked territory. Their vision is to transform and modernise the higher education system to provide better quality of learning with more transparency.
The objectives of Karnataka government are as follows:
Comprehensive reforms through ICT
Making administration transparent and efficient
Expanding access to learning
Improving quality and reducing cost
Ensuring inclusive education
Optimal use of resources
Creating quality learning ecosystem
Providing end to end solution for all needs for learning, academics, skilling and administration
Comments Siddaramaiah – chief minister of Karnataka, “Karnataka is the front runner in many fields and is known in the entire world for its many strengths. The qualified manpower availability in the state is the major backbone of its strengths. In the department of higher education, large number of information communication technology initiatives aimed at bringing large scale reforms in administering of quality education and good content delivery under Jnana Sangama initiative. These initiatives are continued. It is hoped that the Karnataka state will become the model for many others to follow and all the stakeholders will benefit from this.”
The coverage of ICT in Karnataka is a massive initiative, where under the broad umbrella of higher education we cover 50 universities, around 3000 collages, 200 engineering institutes and 300 polytechnic institutes in a short span. The plan is to have Wifi enabled campus, virtual class, tele education and even e-libraries. From the student perspective this is multi dimensional and would make things fairly easy with centralised application for applying in all institutes, merits and roaster based seat allotment, choice based seat allotment, less drudgery, less burdensome, user friendly and globally accessible.
T B Jayachandra, minister for law, parliamentary affairs & higher education added, “There are many challenges before the people who manage and run the higher educational institutions. These institutions have to provide quality education to student to make them competitive. Also the skills of the students have to be sharpened and upgraded so that they can be gainfully employed anywhere in the state, country and the world. ICT enables the administration to leverage its potential for giving good quality education, quality content delivery and upgrading other skills of the students. We are extremely happy that in Karnataka in the higher education sector wide reforms are being introduced through ICT, which will have far reaching implications.”
Jnana Sangama smart-key (Karnataka Education yardstick) is a one-of-a-kind portal to cater high quality education content acrossall departments for students of the State to access from anywhere onany device. This platform is aimed at facilitating free access to the best e-Content and Massive Online Open Courseware (MOOC) that will offer studentshigher quality education and by extension benefit the State withwell-trained human resource. The initiative aims to provide anend-to-end technology solution to most dimensions of higher education.
In the words of Bharat Lal Meena, additional chief secretary, Head of Higher Education Department (HED), Government of Karnataka, “In a global village all have to be competitive. We in the department have a duty cast upon us to make our students the better citizens of tomorrow. This is possible with the best teaching methods coupled with an extensive use of ICT. Gradually, I am hopeful that Karnataka will become a hub of supply of qualified and skilled manpower for not only our country, but also the world. I want to show that Karnataka is still a model state in higher education. It is my mission”
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