Vision:
Enabling all the students of higher education in Gujarat to have access to lectures delivered by eminent academicians from across the state, nation and from abroad all at once by leveraging technology optimally.
Objective:
To facilitate virtual teaching and discussion of various subjects by well known experts of that particular field of knowledge.
To provide a platform for communicating with all colleges, students and teachers simultaneously to disseminate ideas, information & training relevant to higher education.
Rationale/ Justification:
The entire world today has entered a new era of technology led quality education. Technology has today become an integral part of education in the western world. A similar trend is also seen in India. The Govt. of Gujarat has acknowledged the need to enable teachers in higher education to make optimum use of ICT in their classrooms. A need is seen to bring about innovation in the educational sector, breaking from the chalk and talk method and introducing Audio-Visual aids and extending their use in parting education becomes an obvious solution. It is thus that “SANDHAN” has been created. It provides an extensive platform for the use of Audio-Visual tools for the telecast of lectures in an innovative and interesting manner. It also provides an opportunity to students across state to be connected highly acclaimed academicians. It thus adds enormous value to the conventional system rendering it more updated and enjoyable for students.
Background and Current Situation:
This Programme begun in the academic year 2009-10 and has had resounding success among the Faculty and students of the state. Through SANDHAN 790 lectures in 24 subjects were telecast in the entire year. 1650 experts of the concerned fields were invited for the lectures and used several methods to deliver their lectures inmost effective manners. In the current academic year the telecast begun from the month July and approximately 483 lectures have been telecast. New subjects have also been added this year. SANDHAN has also taken into consideration the growing need of including lectures to have students face competitive exams, improve spoken English, personality development and research methodology. These lectures are telecast from Monday to Saturday.
Methodology and plan of action:
SANDHAN is a Programme with wide spread coverage. It hence entails systematic planning from conception to completion. For this, Task Force at various levels have been constituted for the purpose. There are state level coordinators for who chooses 10 experts for each subject. A training workshop is organized for all the experts and coordinators at SPIPA Ahmedabad in the beginning of the academic session. Teachers are familiarized with SANDHAN, Teaching tool, methodology and norms of presenting lectures to be telecast through SANDHAN. This ensures uniformity and standardization of presentations made by the Faculty members.