We had just celebrated Teacher’s day with utmost enthusiasm
and our President Dr. Pranab Mukherjee took a class and whole India witnessed
that. The medium of transmission was TV and it shows the power of communication
technology with the help of which we can reach to many students even if they
are at distant location in our country.
Video conferencing and satellite broadcasting of these
conferences seems a bit old for many youngsters when they themselves are using
instant communication tools like Whatsapp and Skype in their handheld phones.
But still in many schools (I am not talking about high end city schools)
teachers are still using chalk and boards. Communication technology like
mentioned above has a pivotal role to play in this field but still we have a
long way to go in this field. BUT THERE IS ONE INSTANCE IN HISTORY, WHICH COULD
HAVE CHANGED THIS SITUATION DECADES AGO IF THAT WOULD HAVE HAPPENED AS THAT WAS
PLANNED.
There was an experiment, an indigenous one, which could have
consolidated India’s position in the world and pioneer in the field of distant
education. The name of the experiment was SITE (Satellite instructional
television experiment). Very recently our eminent scientists celebrated 40
years of this amazing experiment. So we thought that this is the right time let
our scientists know to use this amazing experiment in educational sector.
Mind behind this indigenous experiment was of none other the
Vikram Sarabhai, Father of Indian Space program. He invented this technology
and wanted to use it for socio-economic development. ISRO has managed to convert
Sarabhai’s vision into reality by using this technology for communication,
environment forecasting etc. but left out education sector in it.
SITE used an American satellite in 1975-76 and it was the
first experiment anywhere in the world to showcase the power of satellite
technology in development communication. Can you believe this fact that this
experiment used to demonstrate technology that can take satellite signals
directly to homes?
We are using DTH now in our homes, decades later from SITE. Now
you all can imagine that the technology and its application both were a unique
product from this experiment called SITE.
India could be the world leader into the satellite technology and its use
in the field of education, environment etc. So what happen and where we missed
the bus? Let’s check it out.
Ignorance by then
Indian government:
SITE was viable and its use was already shown to the
government. Indian government expands its television network very rapidly in
1980’s but through its one day a transmitter program. SITE was a program in which many engineers,
scientist from India and other countries and also UNESCO were involved in it,
whereas the expansion of our beloved Doordarshan was solely and Indian
government program. So when Satellite broadcasted channel like Star and Zee
entered into Indian shores our public broadcaster legged behind in the race in
no time.
Ignorance by the
ISRO:
Once ISRO developed SITE then after that they got busy in strengthening
and developing their space technology in launching satellites and launch
vehicles. Though they tried to provide educational television in collaboration
with UGC and IGNOU but they were not able to repeat the magic of SITE. In 2004,
India launched its EDUSAT satellite with the objective of providing quality
education into remote areas and also to overcome the problem of under qualified
teacher both at higher and secondary school levels. It was much superior to
1975 experiment as it was equipped with 2 way communication facility both audio
and video and consists of interactive channels.
But at this time many countries already forayed into this field and
India had already lost the chance to be a pioneer in this field.
There was problem in software and education content and
because of this EDUSAT satellite was not able to work properly in spite of
having better hardware. There was delay in the on ground facilities to receive the
signal from EDUSAT. There were no definite plan of action for content
generation and there were no single source identified for monitoring and
controlling of the program. So EDUSAT was up there in the sky but there were
not enough facilities to catch those signals which EDUSAT were beaming.
CHALLENGES AHEAD:
So we have the necessary technology, expertise and
capability to again create the magic of SITE but the inadequate content
development and management capacity to run these multi-agency programs ineffectively.
We need to develop the satellite, digital and mobile technology to conquer the deficiency
in education and health sector as well.
Now ISRO alone can’t do it because we have seen the
situation of EDUSAT. So if we don’t want to import any other communication
revolution so we need to lighten up the spirit of SITE and start working in
this area more rigorously. We are not leader in DTH despite pioneering In it
but we should not repeat this mistake again.
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