A webinar on the implementation of Budget 2022 announcements relating to the education sector was organized on 21st February 2022 which was addressed by Prime Minister Shri Narendra Modi. Under the webinar, a session was organised on the theme “Widening Reach of One Class: One Channel: Reaching Quality Digital Education to the Farthest Corner.” The session was chaired by Prof. Nageshwar Rao, Vice-Chancellor, IGNOU, New Delhi and co-chaired by Shri T. P. Singh, Director General, BISAG-N, MeitY, GoI. The discussions were moderated by Prof. Amarendra Prasad Behera, Joint Director, CIET, NCERT, New Delhi.

Prof. Nageshwar Rao in his address as the Chair, emphasized on the importance of developing e-Contents in the mother tongue. Shri T. P. Singh, DG-BISAG-N, while providing an overview of the technical preparations required for starting 200 PM eVidya DTH TV channels. Prof. Amarendra P. Behera, Joint Director, CIET NCERT acted as a moderator of the session. He outlined the journey of 12 PM eVidya channels, which started with the announcement of the PM eVidya program by the Finance Minister on 17th May 2020. As part of this program, the one class one channel initiative for all 12 classes began on 1st September, 2020.

Shri Muralidharan, Chairman, TMI one of the panellists expressed the concern on the heterogeneity of the learners' group and the need to include various innovations in pedagogy to increase understanding and enhance the learning outcomes. Dr Venkat Rangan, VC, Amrita Vishwa Vidyapeetham highlighted the importance of video tutorials on Online Laboratories. The medium of tele-schooling through the satellite medium of the Edusat network and the techno-managerial aspects were explained by Shri S. H. Rayappa, Associate Director, SATCOM-ISRO. He also spoke about the manner in which GSAT-15 will be used for running 200 channels. Dr T.S. Joshi, Director GCERT, Gujarat presented the successful model of running Vande Gujarat channels.

Other speakers included heads and representatives of various Government and non-Government organisations. The aspects that were highlighted by the speakers included infrastructural set-up, creation of quality e Content in various languages, creation of eContent for DIVYANG and gifted children, the inclusion of e Content on health, psycho-social aspects, fresh approach for pre-vocational and vocational videos including job roles for the service sector, monitoring and advocacy of the channels to generate awareness among learners to maximize the reach. Collaboration and convergence of efforts of various stakeholders were highlighted as the key to facilitating the whole process.

Later in the day, the concluding session of the webinar was held with Dr Subhas Sarkar, MoS, MoE chairing the session. Shri Rajeev Chandrasekhar, MoS, Ministry for Skill Development and Entrepreneurship and Electronics and Information Technology also spoke on the webinar topic giving his perspectives on skill and entrepreneurship.

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