One may think it's just another one of 150-odd municipal schools in the city. However, a classroom on the first floor of the City of Los Angeles municipal school in Mahim (Mumbai) can take one by surprise. The room looks ordinary from the outside: The paint on the wall is peeling and age has caught up with the sturdy wooden benches. The students stare intently, not at a blackboard, but at a huge plasma screen.
The teacher, Ajit Raul, is at least 15 km away at a studio in Andheri, giving a maths lecture in Marathi to the students in this classroom, along with students in 79 other Brihanmumbai Mahanagar Palika (BMC) schools across the city. Raul is not alone. Nivas Shevale and 38 other BMC teachers use the studio at Andheri (east), where they address around 18,000 students across 80 such schools daily, using very small aperture terminal (VSAT) satellite communication technology.
“These are no one-way lectures. Students ask a lot of questions, too,” says Kailash Arya, the programme coordinator at the school. Using dish antennas, these schools are connected to the Andheri studio. There are large plasma screens installed in the classrooms which project the teachers live from the studio. It is a multiple-way communication process through which students can communicate with the teacher and the teacher in turn, can monitor the students and answer their queries immediately. Students across the 80 schools can also communicate with each other by merely pressing a button on the remote control provided.
“Children are very excited about the new project. They love seeing themselves on TV screens, so they are encouraged to ask more questions. Personalities like Madhuri Dixit have also promoted this project, which further motivates the students,” says a teacher from City of Los Angeles Municipal School in Matunga. She adds the attendance for the classes is usually 100 per cent.
The BMC teachers have been trained in the use of technology by the Valuable Group, which provides the technology, the estimated cost of which is around Rs 15 crore. Most of the teachers at the studio use digital blackboards. The process begins when each teacher is filmed delivering a lecture at the studio and the image is simultaneously beamed to the classrooms with the help of VSATs. The images are picked up through an antenna on the terrace of both the studio and the civic schools. This is then projected on the plasma screens. The VSAT satellite communications device allows audio/video transmission through satellite, using antennas that are less than three metres tall.
“We have trained over 40 teachers, both at the studio and at the schools, to operate the remote controls. Teachers at the studio have also been given intense training on how to use the digital blackboards,” says Charu Satam, director (corporate affairs), Valuable Group. He adds 3-D facilities are being proposed for vocational training programmes from the next year.
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But why plasma screens and not the more energy-efficient LCDs (or LEDs)? Satam says plasma screens were used in the project, since these were easily available. “We wanted to use 60-inch screens for the benefit of the students. These were readily obtainable from a leading electronics company.”
BMC plans to introduce the project in the remaining municipal schools. “Currently, there are 40 teachers and 20 experts involved in the project.
We are holding meetings with school headmasters, officials and parents.
In due course of time, the facility would be available in all the 1,331 schools in Mumbai, including primary and secondary schools,” says Abbasaheb Jadhav, chief education officer, BMC.
Arya says there is also a provision for students from neighbouring BMC schools to attend the virtual classes at these schools. “But it is not always possible,” he says, adding BMC plans to extend the scope of the project by inviting authors and educationists for the programme, so students can get a better perspective on the topics.
The virtual classroom project initiated by BMC was started across 21 secondary schools on a pilot basis in January. The idea, proposed by Shiv Sena executive president Uddhav Thackeray, was extended to 59 more schools on July 26 after the BMC reported a high success rate in virtual classrooms. Dattaray Honalkar, this year's standard X topper, with 94.9 per cent, was a student of virtual classroom-enabled N M Joshi Municipal School in Lower Parel.
Critics, however, say rather than introducing new technologies, the infrastructure at the civic schools should be improved. Jadhav counters, “There are many opinions on this issue. All
I can say is this process of communication and interaction is very beneficial for the students. This is a very organised structure. It helps them gain confidence, with the help of guidance from experts.”