Choudhury

Guwahati, March 23: The next time a student of Barpeta College thinks his Part I marks are not what they should have been, all he will need to do is switch on a computer in his college and shoot his questions to Gauhati University officials, sitting 140-odd km away.

In six months’ time, a Rs 2-crore knowledge-sharing network will enable affiliated colleges scattered across the state to communicate with the university through video conferencing.

A team of Gauhati University faculty put forward this knowledge-network proposal before the human resource development ministry in New Delhi on Friday. The impressed central team not only promptly approved of the project, but also agreed to kick off the first phase of the project right away — April being the slated date.

If everything works out as planned, Gauhati University and 50 of its affiliated colleges will be equipped with satellite communication and video conferencing by October.

The method is simple.

Kandarpa Sarma, a member of the electronics faculty and in charge of the placement cell, said the hub of the network would be set up at the university. It will be equipped with VSAT and video conferencing facilities.

Affiliated colleges will then be provided computers and video conferencing infrastructure to enable them to be part of the project.

It operatively means that by this year-end, college authorities and students across Assam will be spared the trouble of travelling to Guwahati for queries regarding syllabus, examinations and results.

The project will give these colleges, particularly those in remote areas, better access to study material used nationwide and help them “share and solve” their problems, said vice-chancellor Amarjyoti Choudhury.

Estimated to cost more than Rs 10crore, the network will help the university and its colleges keep in touch with top-of-the-line institutions like Indira Gandhi National Open University for the latest techniques in learning and teaching.

Once all the colleges are linked through this network, answers to queries ranging from examination marking to a particularly tricky quantum physics problem will be just a video conference away.