From Our Correspondent
Guwahati: Assam Higher Education department has got into a new dimension by foraying into the digital mode to revamp the quality of teaching imparted in colleges and universities in the state of Assam.
A special schemes launched by Assam government on Friday was in setting up digital classrooms in universities and about 200 colleges and digitization of libraries in the entire state in phased manner as one of its core components.
Launching the scheme, chief minister Tarun Gogoi said, “Digital classroom is a unique solution for knowledge and information sharing with institutions of repute abroad.”
The Chief Minister said “Our education system is outdated compared to the global scenario. We need to overhaul the education sector.”
“I recommend that our universities, colleges should vie for academic tie up with best universities in the World.”
“We have already tied up with Stanford University for a detailed research which will involve a diverse array of topics and at the same time, focus on our culture, languages”, said Gogoi.
The chief minister suggested that heads of universities and colleges of the state should visit foreign universities and best technical institutes to have first hand knowledge about education system is changing for better in advanced countries.
Gogoi prescribed institutions in the United States, United Kingdom , Japan and China for such visit by heads of higher education institutes in the state.
The chief minister distributed bank draft of Rs. 1 Crore each to 36 colleges for developing infrastructures for digital classroom.
Altogether 200 government colleges would get the financial assistance to develop digital classrooms.
Assam education minister Himnata Biswa Sarma said that Rs 200 crore had been earmarked for digital classroom facilities in technical (engineering) and non technical colleges in the state.
In the next step libraries of government colleges and universities would be digitized.
Under the scheme, digital lecture studios would be developed in Guwahati and Dibrugarh Universities.
A digital lecture studio is the world’s first unique all-in-one platform that encompasses an amalgamation of the hardware, content, technology and software. This digital lecture studio has a unique model for teaching, capturing and delivering classroom teaching or academic lectures, training centers, conference halls and meeting rooms which will surely enliven the teaching experience.