Education by Satellite

The lack of Internet access is a large impediment to much of the developing world’s ability to engage in e-learning.

UNESCO issues an annual report on “Education for All” (EFA) which addresses the aim of universal education globally. In 2008, it noted that, even though over one billion people now have access to the Web, “the Internet remains inaccessible to most children, youth and adults in the countries that are struggling the most to achieve EFA.”

India shows how distance education can help fill the gap that traditional schools can’t fill in developing countries. In 2004, India launched EDUSAT, the world’s first dedicated education satellite, devoted exclusively to beaming distance learning courses.

EDUSAT is a collaborative project of the Indian Space Research Organisation, the Ministry of Human Resources, state departments of education and the Indira Gandhi National Open University. A UNESCO report explained: “Its aim is to improve and expand virtual learning for children, youth and adults by providing connectivity to schools, colleges, higher levels of education and non-formal education centres. A year after its launch, virtual classrooms had become a reality, with the connection of more than a dozen teacher training centres and fifty government schools in Kerala state.”

Ruwan Salgado, Executive Director of World Links, a not-for-profit enterprise dedicated to providing disadvantaged youth around the world with access to information technology, added: “Developing countries, such as India, have increased expenditures six-fold and so are beginning to make significant financial commitments and investments in teaching information technology skills in their schools. The implication is that, in the next decade, developing countries, such as India, will make significant progress in narrowing the gap between the U.S. and themselves in providing their students with information technology skills, both in breadth and quality.”

Even if e-learning overall is proving slow in terms of uptake in many countries, institutions clearly feel they should be offering it.

Find out more about EDUSAT.

Find out more about World Links.