New Trends in Education!

Next on your screen: trigonometry

TIMES NEWS NETWORK

Mumbai: Ever imagined your dad cajoling you to watch TV a day before exams? That’s the way learning and last-minute revision is set to go with education channels and distance learning programmes offering content to suit every student’s needs.
Currently, the Indira Gandhi National Open University (IGNOU) operates Gyan Darshan, a channel that caters to pre-schoolers, and primary, secondary and college students. Content is contributed by IGNOU, University Grants Commission, and National Council for Education Research and Training.
To reach more students, IGNOU will soon start two more channels, GD-1 and GD-2. They will be placed on the DTH platform of DD, Direct Plus. IGNOU vice chancellor V N Rajashekharan Pillai said students would be able to avail of the new facility at home and unlike Gyan Darshan, it would enable live interaction.
Private channels are also offering similar services. Topper, a recently introduced freeto-view channel on DTH, airs courses and runs two ‘exam special’ episodes too on a daily basis. Currently, IIT (Bombay) also runs free live classrooms for engineering students across the country.
Similar initiatives are also being undertaken at the school education level. While Edusat — a distance education programme via satellite — has reached government schools, private initiatives are also seeing students adopt newer techniques for studies. The Academy, an online portal of MBD Alchemie, that offers online studies, crash courses, tests and solves queries raised by students, has seen almost 6,000 class X and XII students register for online classes.