Rajiv Gandhi Project Involved a Partnership Between

Rajiv Gandhi project involved a partnership between the Indira Gandhi National Open University and a series of educational institutes throughout India. The principal focus of the project was related to providing teachers with a more complex understanding of their role and of the attitudes they need to take on in order to experience best results in their classrooms.

Through introducing interactive online means of communications in a series of educational institutes all across the country, the project's managers aimed to make it easier for teachers and for basically everyone involved in these schools to successfully overcome a series of boundaries they had in the past. This project is the result of several communities coming together as a consequence of their concern in reforming a large part of the educational system in India.

These respective groups have brought significant attributes to the project with the purpose of helping it progress more rapidly. "An Apex Core Group has been constituted. It consists of representatives from MHRD, IGNOU, DEC, ISRO, concerned State Governments, Indian Institute of Information and Technology, Jabalpur etc." (RAJIV GANDHI PROJECT -- A PILOT TO PROVIDE EDUCATION THROUGH MASSIVE SATELLITE CONNECTIVITY UP TO GRASSROOT LEVEL) The Rajiv Gandhi Project aims to provide education through satellite connectivity on a large scale. The project was designed to accommodate approximately 50 schools around the country.

By having the ability to connect to master servers and by having access to information provided by these respective devices, these respective schools are more probable to encounter little to no problems as teachers attempt to find effective channels of communication with their students. The consortium in charge of the project launched a satellite on the 20th of September 2004 with the purpose of being able to connect with schools that are part of the program.

"It was decided to provide a Tele-education network in and around the Sidhi district of Madhya Pradesh, with uplink and studio facility (Hub) at Jabalpur (MP) and around 700 receive only terminals (ROTs) in various schools." (Desai et. al) One of the most intriguing things about the project is the fact that it took into account the fact that many schools had limited and even no access to electric power.

As a consequence, the project involved the installation of solar power systems in these areas, thus making it possible for students and teachers there to learn at a much faster pace than they did in the past. The project as a whole acknowledged the power of education and concentrated on providing underprivileged communities with the opportunity to evolve at a similar rate as privileged groups.

Among a series of other institutions, the Ministry of Human Resource Development (MHRD) and the government of India through the Indian Space Research Organization were both involved in funding and supporting the project. "This pilot project has been approved with appropriate funding both from MHRD and ISRO, named as Rajiv Gandhi Project on EduSat Supported Elementary Education." (Garg 71) This makes it possible for someone to understand the magnitude of the project and the resources that have been invested in making it possible.

There are a series of other private companies involved in the project: IGNOU, DEC, Pt. D.P. Mishra Indian Institute of Information & Technology, Jabalpur and Department of Computer Science, Rani Durgawati University, Jabalpur are the major content providers of the project. The network currently has approximately 1000 receive-only terminals and each of them operates around two hours every day. Teachers.