The Hindu Business Line : Core Projects, IL&FS, IGNOU in pact for education content

New Delhi, Nov. 22 Keeping in tune with the Government’s commitment to enhance the reach and quality of imparting education to students in India, Core Projects and Technologies has signed a memorandum of understanding with Infrastructure Leasing and Financial Services (IL&FS) and the Indira Gandhi National Open University to create education content using space age technology.

The project, which involves a capital expenditure to the tune of $750 million spread over a five-year period, will involve setting up of as many as 1,000 learning centres across the country.

CAVE project

The project – Cave Automatic Virtual Environment (CAVE) is being developed by scientists of the Centre of higher learning at the NASA Stennis Space Centre, Mississippi.

CAVE enables educators to take a different approach to imparting education. The immersive visualisation technology allows users to be fully engrossed in an interactive 3D virtual environment.

“The deployment of this technology in classrooms will greatly enhance the ability of students to understand complicated topics. It will also enable them to conduct innovative experiments leading to cutting edge research and development,” Mr Rajsekharan Pillai, Vice-Chancellor, IGNOU, told newspersons here.

Under the MoU, Core, IL&FS will provide the physical infrastructure for housing and locating the immersive visualisation technology to be provided by Core.

In addition, Core and IL&FS through its affiliate Education and Technology Service (IETS) will spearhead the development of content for teaching as well as prepare teacher training materials and packages, Mr Sanjeev Mansotra, Chairman and Managing Director of Core, said.

Subjects as biology, anatomy, chemistry, molecular science and physics will be covered under the project.

IGNOU will aid in setting up visualisation laboratories at all its centres, suggest the educational content and provide subject matter experts in development of the educational products. It will also advice and give recommendations for specifically tailored applications to be developed by Core.