Karnataka govt launches tablet PC scheme for 1.5 lakh students

BENGALURU: The State Government will spend Rs 195 crore this fiscal year to boost digital learning for students in government colleges. Chief Minister BS Yediyurappa on Wednesday rolled out an initiative that aims to promote digital learning and bridge the digital divide in higher education.

As part of the initiative, tablet PCs will be distributed to about 1.55 lakh students of government colleges. The higher education department also hopes to convert 2,500 classrooms in colleges into smart classes and developing a unique Learning Management System (LMS) that will facilitate online and offline classes.

“The initiative of empowering students by providing tablet PCs and creating 2,500 smart classrooms are expected to largely benefit the students belonging to economically weaker sections of the society, who pursue their studies in government  institutions,” Yediyurappa said after launching the scheme.

Tablet PCs will be distributed to first-year students of 430 government first grade colleges, 1st and 2nd-year students of 87 government polytechnic colleges, and 1st, 2nd, and 3rd-year students of 14 engineering colleges.  Smart classrooms will be equipping with a projector, whiteboard, Android box, UPS, and the Internet. The LMS enables access to learning both in online and offline modes.

“This will enable ‘Any Time, Anywhere’ learning and will be beneficial for 25,000 teaching faculty and 5 lakh students. Karnataka is the first state in the country to implement such a comprehensive learning management system,” said Deputy Chief Minister Dr CN Ashwath Narayan, who is also Minister for 
Higher Education. 

The aim, he said, is to resolve the imbalances between offline and online, digital and physical, rural and urban, government and private, rich and poor and also English and native language barriers concerning access to quality teaching and learning.