Summary
Rural Technology Centres being set up in rural areas of Tamil Nadu
Students of Classes IX to XII to be trained in computer science
The Indian Institute of Technology (IIT) Madras Pravartak Technologies Foundation has partnered with Asha for Education, a US-based non-profit, to bring computer science literacy to students of government schools in the remote, rural areas of Tamil Nadu. The partners have successfully set up two Rural Technology Centres and plans to establish more centres this year.
Two Asha-IIT Madras Pravartak Rural Technology Centres were inaugurated in Kanakamma Chathram and Seethanjeri villages of Tiruvallur district, around 60km from Chennai, on February 11
The centres are aimed at providing computer training to students of Classes IX to XII. The project is financially supported by IIT Madras Pravartak Technologies Foundation. The foundation plans to offer technical support to the centres as well.
The key outcomes of the project are to encourage the use of new technology without fear, allow children to experience new technologies under the guidance of teachers, develop students’ computational thinking and design thinking skills and provide students with a chance to express their creativity through interesting projects. Overall, the target is to spread the knowledge of technology and its benefits to rural areas.
The spread of computer science literacy to rural areas and tapping the potential of the government school students is a priority of IIT Madras and IIT Madras Pravartak Technologies Foundation director V. Kamakoti.
“IIT Madras is committed to working towards providing access to quality education and technology to students belonging to rural areas of our country. The setting up of these two rural technology centres mark the beginning of our journey,” Kamakoti said.
Asha for Education has been promoting digital literacy and computational thinking in elementary and middle Schools since 2015. The organisation uses advanced block-based programming tools such as Scratch from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) and Blockly from Google to teach programming.
Speaking about their training initiatives, Rajaraman Krishnan from Asha for Education said, “These tools are so easy to use that the middle school students have mastered these in a few weeks and shown tremendous enthusiasm in learning. Asha expects to build on this expertise by using proven methodologies such as the curriculum from code.org that have been used and tested in other countries successfully. We also intend to use IIT’s experience and expertise in quality technical education.”
“We wanted to open the centres close to higher secondary schools so that the students will be able to attend courses in our centres in the evening after their school hours. Most children do not get any opportunity to learn computer science and other technologies. Even if they do it is taught without any hands-on experience with computers. We hope to provide these with our rural technology centres,” Krishnan said.
R. Divya, Asha for Education teacher working at the Rural Technology Centre in Seethanjeri, Tiruvallur District, described the initiative as great opportunity for rural students to learn computers. “The students are eager and show a lot of interest. We hope more such centres will be opened,” she said.
Last updated on 11 Feb 2022
