Rourkela, Aug. 4: The A.N. Khosla Centre for Technology Enabled Learning was inaugurated at the National Institute of Technology (NIT) here today.

Computer scientist and academic Deepak B. Phatak from IIT, Mumbai, who is a recipient of the Padma Shri and a pioneer in the field of e-learning activities, inaugurated the centre.

The inauguration was followed by a workshop titled 'Technology enabled learning: Accelerate your learning through ICT.'

Phatak stressed on the expanding reach of information and communication technology. He felt this would enable the faculties to develop better pedagogical (learning) tools for imparting education.

Phatak said: "The faculty must improve the quality of teaching by embracing technical support systems. There is an urgent need for teachers to reach the underprivileged children of the society. The teachers should also ensure the enhancement of the knowledge base of students and bring them to a level where they can compete with others."

Phatak said teaching should not remain confined to the classrooms. It should move beyond he campuses. He said: "Teachers should reach out to millions of children at one point in time, enabling many to learn together."

"Around 53 autonomous institutes in the country have united to create Massive Online Open Courses (MOOC)," said Phatak.He thinks this would prove to be the game changer for the whole education scenario of the country.

The director of NIT, Rourkela, Sunil K. Sadangi said: "The future of learning is e-learning and no one can stop it now. The faculties should learn the intricacies of e-learning methods."