Slashdot Mirror
India Launches World's First Education Satellite
samfisher writes "New Scientist is reporting that India has launched EDUSAT, the world's first satellite exclusively dedicated to distance learning. EDUSAT will use the virtual classroom concept to offer education to children in remote villages, quality higher education to students in areas without access to good technical institutes, adult literacy programmes and training modules for teachers. The educational programmes can be viewed on any television set through a simple low-cost receiver costing about $65."
Sure, the set top reciever is cheap( to us), but then you need to HAVE a TV and the electricity to run all the gear. So if the intention is to level to playing field, you have created another division around the power issue.
Bacardi + slashdot = negative karma.
If a simple low-cost receiver costing about $65, I think that's alot cheaper than U.S public education. I really don't know how edumacation money is spent in the U.S. Teachers are low paid, principal might be better, but all resources don't remotely add up to our tax dollars. Though all in all that's still better than colleges. Which now charges $65,000 easily in two years.
We get to laugh cause jobs are being outsourced from India as its economy improves to countries where people will work for even less. In 50 years we may reach a point where there is at least something resembling a middle class in nearly every country. On the other hand we will probably all be working for a single megacorp/world government that lojacks us at birth.
Edusat means Channel 1.
It's a weird irony that it's cheaper to send up a satellite than it is to build schools to support everyone.
65 USD may be low-cost for someone in the USA or Europe or so, but is it really for someone who doesn't have proper access to education yet? And of course, you need a TV set, too, which further adds to the costs attached to this... Don't get me wrong, I think that this is a good idea, but I don't see how it would help those who'd need help the most.
quidquid latine dictum sit altum videtur.
Where can one buy one of these $65 receivers? I figure the signal probably reaches about half of the globe, so mostly anybody in Asia should be able to get the signal, right?
All data is speech. All speech is Free.
Does it run Linux?
Beware he who would deny you access to information, for in his heart he dreams himself your master. -Anonymous
there have been local projects in rural india where small pilot projects have been hugely successful. weather forecast for fishermen in quite a few places. the indian fishermen have small boats & cant afford GPS. hence they benefitted enormously from the satellite + MET office. farmers in villages have taken to drought predictions/ rain forecast in many arid zones. the sub continent is really unique with different weather conditions, different levels of affluence, religions, languages. etc. also complicating the problem is the presence of close to a million villages (there are 700,000 of them). in this regard, satellite is truly a tool that could be used. there are pilot projects running in IIT for low cost VSATs, and cheap telecom tools for tech to enter into villages. already, the government run telecom giant has penetrated the villages with mobile that gets access at a pittance. just wanted to point out the complexities involved, most of /. wouldnt know the ground realities in india.
I am reminded of when -- back in the 50's -- the State of Indiana sent an airplane up in the air every school day. It circled around and around, broadcasting educational films to every school in the state that had a receiver. Ain't nuttin' new under the sun... -- TE
If the classrooms have return uplinks, then this project makes much more sense than the current "Education alongside other functions", because two-way communications for students can be very important, and the multipurpose satellites would not be well-suited to the uplink needs of the classrooms themselves.
@Whee
"The educational programmes can be viewed on any television set through a simple low-cost receiver costing about $65."
In India average urban household income is estimated at US$2,847, while also having an average household size estimated around 5.07 people.
Thats like you feeding a family of five on $7.50 a day.
My point being, $65 is not "low-cost" for this part of the world, whether it be schools or familys purchasing this technology.
---------------
Source
Now India can educate its populace too, relatively-cheaply. Surely the anti-outsourcing crowd isn't opposed to people being educated -- right?
(except, that is, for those who don't mind publicly stating that their having a monopoly on being educated is a good thing b/c it raises their wages. Some of us like to think that having everybody educated beyond caveman levels has been good for the world; we also believe that further education is likewise, logically, a good thing. But some people don't agree, I know...)
Is Capitalism Good for the Poor?
Looks like any post about anything happening in India seems to attract all the trolls like moths to a burning candle. The problem is not India - they are doing what needs to improve their lives; even if that means taking jobs for cheap from Americans. Capitalism and global economny are American ideas - we cannot ignore them because they are starting to hurt us now.
Instead of sitting on our fat behinds (yes, 60% of our country is overweight - that is a whole different problem), it's about time we figure out how to get the house in order before blaming others. Schools suck, college costs have sky-rocketed - have the stupid politicians fix this first.
All the jobs that were outsourced are history - manufacturing jobs in the last two decades to China, and now some of the tech jobs to India and elsewhere. And any amount of crying aren't going to get those back. Figure out what is relevant in today's economy and work towards using that to your advantage.
The articles' numbers say 35% of a billion people can't read... so basically you're looking at a nationwide literacy program to handle 350 MILLION people.
It's nearly unimaginable that India has that level of scale that makes it more efficient to launch a satellite.
And yet, my local city government can't seem to figure out how to keep 13 high schools funded properly... (even though they claim they're raising taxes every year to do so...)
If I hadn't wasted all my mod points, I actually would have used them modding up this AC.
Beware he who would deny you access to information, for in his heart he dreams himself your master. -Anonymous
Since the late 1980s in india there was a concept on the govt channel DD called Country Wide classroom which covered topics like chemistry, physics, maths and various quizzes and it was quite fun
Striving to be common...
..if australia would find use for such a system?
having such a spread out population (besides the coastal areas) may require just such a thing...
not really sure how much of a space program they have though..
This should be the first distance learning programme for higher education in India.
We have to remember that distance education is always a step-child compared to in-class one-on-one teacher-student interaction - Yes - its a major step forard for all Indian kids who cant afford any kind of education - but I dont think we can really outsource teaching that soon - there are important elements of personal attention and interaction that are missing from remote educational systems like these. So dont worry about losing your job any time soon !
..And the people bowed and prayed, To the neon gods they made.
everyone commenting so far seems to envision that everyone in each of those villages is supposed to have their own television and receiver... How about if just a few people that live near each other help pay for the cost together and share it?
Maybe that's what the original intent of the sattelite was?
Actio personalis moritur cum persona. (Dead men don't sue)
The thing that really bothers me about outsourcing jos to India isn't necessarily the outflux of "American jobs", but the level of service that one can expect when they get a $3/hour ESL Indian on he phone that knows nothing about the products they are representing. I have encountered this situation on a handful of occasions in the past few months, and I must say that it is rather disconcerting. People thought that most companies don't give much thought to customer service *before* this paticular trend, and now it is only getting worse.
If it's for education, I'm sure Bush will find some reason to have it knocked out of orbit.
I find it touching, though it's actually so practical, that India has has the clarity of vision to invest in things like internet to remote regions and a freaking educational satellite to empower their populace. I don't know if their current surge in tech prowess is connected to that internet initiative. But my guess is that spreading knowledge before investing in so many other things (race to the moon?) will serve their nation well.
I just bought my first copy of New Scientist off the rack today, the Sept 25 issue. I thought I was buying a magazine that took over where Scientific American left off, but after reading all the articles, I am shocked to find the quality of the science is abyssmal. Its like reading Pravda or the Enquirer only with a scientific sounding tone.
Computer scientists here can go look at the article "the jumble cruncher" that is a jaw droppingly stupid story about turing machines and physic with circular logic and proof by authority.
The cover story about randomness is also lame, a mathemetician basically says that hidden variables are real, the universe is deterministic and all the physicists and philosphers are just wrong because..well they are.
Anyway, is this magazine typicall this bad?
Which "King's College?" Are you sure there wasn't a burger on the sign out front?
Hint: there's a world full of other countries and other universities beyond the 50 states. And, in some of those universities, you can get a real education.
By the way, if your own education had given you any sort of basic research skills, or if you weren't so damn lazy, then you'd know that he's talking about King's College, London. You'd be able to guess that from googling "King's College, but in this case you could say that that's the place for sure simply by looking at the guy's Slashdot journals, which point to his detailed blog.
Perhaps the reason why you can't do these simple things is because the only place that you graduated from was McDonalds U?
"Accept that some days you are the pigeon, and some days you are the statue." - David Brent, Wernham Hogg
Nato (Western Europe + North America) was involced in Afghanistan as well, so all in all the figures are correct
UK was also part of the war in Iraq, but still has lower spendings
It seems like whatever education is going on will just be broadcasted information.. No different than the discovery channel. Is there going to be a physical teacher designated to the students, or will it be like a lecture format where the student merely listens to the instructor and doesn't interact? I always thought it would be a good idea to develop artificial intelligence to a point where a software teacher can understand questions about a given topic and have a knowledge base to give answers from. but maybe i'm just unrealistic:P
Slartibartfast:"Is that your robot?"
Marvin:"No, I'm mine."
Yes but they spent nearly a 100 million trying to educate their kids. It seems like they could have spent that money invading bangladesh or something don't you think. Clearly their priorities are all messed up.
evil is as evil does
Their India-designed rocket is able to send a two-ton satellite to geostationary orbit, which is a respectable achievement. Compared to the latest US-built Atlas rocket, which uses a Russian engine, it's clear which country is giving more emphasis to developing its technology. Instead of bemoaning all the technological jobs being exported to "third world" nations, American geeks should start wondering, if the biggest and most powerful rocket engine ever built is on display at the Smithsonian in DC, then why cannot the US aerospace industry build the most powerful rocket engine in use today?
Oh for God's sake. let go of that pride somewhat, and instead of viewing India as a competitor, why not think of it as a gift to have a country that is halfway across the world from you, with 1 billion people, who doesn't hate your fucking guts and isn't trying to blow up your citizens with its nukes, and happens to be a democracy - a system which is comprehensible to Americans? Why not push for some sort of partnership, technological, business or other which ay fuel more jobs for all of us. India is in desperate need of infrastructure, and political will. Try and find ways to help India get that, and make some money in the process. I remember somebody beforehand who said that India's market is closed to American goods. That's bullshit. American companies don't consider India a market lucrative enough for their products. I used to be a former employee of Amazon.com, and I got the opportunity to ask Jeff Bezos (circa 2000) when he was gonna start up Amazon India, and his response was to look at me quizzically like India was about as close to America as the distant star Vega and say "It's not on our top 10 list of things to do at this point". Then sometime early this year, eBay (whom Amazon considers a competitor) went and bought Baazee, and has thus stolen a lead on Amazon. Instead of saying trade is one way between India and America to India's ultimate benefit, why not try and develop the Indian market so that you can sell your products there? India WAS a closed market, but that was way back in 1991. If American companies aren't going to India now, it's because they don't want to go and do the hard work. They'd rather find a new way to sell chewing-gum flavoured toothpaste to a bunch of Europeans. Unilever, a dutch company involved in the sale of Household goods (like P & G) wanted to sell Shampoo in India. But of course being a low income country, they couldn't figure out how to do it. Then one of their marketing suits realized that instead of selling the shampoo in large bottles, it should be repackaged into small single-use plastic satchets. The reason was that most of the Indians never had large amounts of money on them but they could afford the small and cheap satchets. End result, they ended up selling a shitload more shampoo than they ever imagined. Find a way to sell something to a 1 billion people, and you won't be bothered about losing a few thousand jobs to them. Heck all of you have degrees, you can read and write. How hard can it be?
My Favourite Meme
Those are average salaries, not entry level salaries. Public schools generally pay teachers who have been there longer more than new teachers. So the blue hair who taught you Math and who still uses an abacus probably gets paid more than the young Physics teacher who can relate to the kids and is thus able to teach them something.
Mathematics is made of 50 percent formulas, 50 percent proofs, and 50 percent imagination.
Nice point on the busses. I wonder how much the school districts could save by eliminating the brainwashed addiction to professional team sports that starts in the public schools by running stealth minor league farm teams for them. A lot of bussing goes on with those activities. It has to be a lot in terms of dollars spent per year. I'd much rather see those sorts of activities be entirely paid for by the appropriate parents and the "leagues" instead of funding it with enforced property taxes and round robin income tax to washington, skim half to run a bureaucracy that is basically just a jobs program, then return it back to the schools.
I'm not against athletics, I'm against subsidising profitable multi billion a year private business, which is what team sports are in this nation. Kids can have fun and get exercise without that needless expense, and IMO, society in general would be a lot better off without the addiction to those sports. It also has an effect of encouraging jingoism, look at the rhetoric, this (insert city school) team needs to "beat" the other team, destroy them, etc. Any local paper you can see how much of an addiction it is usually.
I've also noticed an additional phenomenon. there's an elementary school up the street from me. Half (I am generally speaking, seems like a ton of cars though for a small school) the kids get driven to and from school by their parents now, you can see the cars lined up out the school property and up the street twice a day. The busses still run though, but half empty. At the nearest high school it's similar, but it'sthe students themselves that drive to schoolin huge numbers, but again, they still run the busses not very full, I've seen them taking off after school, not nearly as full as they could be.
... the states and local governments extract for education, the current US federal budget for the department of education is 63 billion dollars. That is not a trivial sum. If it was entirely up to the states and local governments, all that money could be used, and an entire federal department eliminated. The states and local governments already have local administrations running that could deal with it, and if we eliminated the federal effort, all the money wasted on just running what is in essence a redundancy could be eliminated. It makes no sense to extract income taxes, filter and skim them massively through washington, then return only part of the money right back to where it came from. It's a skim, and it is part of the self perpetuating federal government bloat. It didn't exist when I was a kid, and it didn't seem to matter, we had the same schools, just run much cheaper. They created an agency or department that isn't needed. This costs money. They then say "wow, our expenses are going up so we need more tax money" Lather rinse repeat.
The federal governments primary duty appears to be perpetuating itself as a growth industry, any ancillary effect is incidental to maintaining their make-work "jobs".
go to http://www.ddindia.com/About+DD/About+DD+-+DD+Nati onal/DDNationalChannel.htm
the national TV channel and right from its inception almost half a century back the emphasis has been on education rather than entertainment
Striving to be common...
Hello Class, My name is Kali from Dali, thank you for turning on your receiver. I will be you new American History Teacher, please turn to page 120. Today we look at the history of the American Presidency, from WWI to the current War. This segment brought to you by the GOP. Remember kids, no guns in school, out side....have fun! The young republican club will meet later today at 4 pm. Please have your receiver on by 3pm. Dyna Corp will announce a new School Principal at noon. And have your bus fuel fee ready for for the end of the month to avoid putting your parents in collection with Haliburton. Tonights Young Republicans Meeting topic will be :" Democrats: how spot, How to report" To nights meeting will be sponsored by The Carlyle Group:
"Our mission is to be the premier global private equity firm, leveraging the insight of Carlyle's team of investment professionals to generate extraordinary returns across a range of investment choices, while maintaining our good name and the good name of our investors."
Today class..... Jimmy, please do not block the web cam.... Thank you, also your mother will not be picking you up today after class....She will be staying late for "cross training" her new off shore co-workers!..How nice....
Julius Caesar - Act I, Scene i: "What mean'st thou by that? Mend me, thou saucy fellow!"
check this out, ran a simple google search, this is the latest top news story, 38% of chicago public school teachers send their children to private schools. The article goes on to comment on the national trend, urban areas in particular are getting pretty high with similar actions. The teachers themselves are voting with their own money and action, taking their children out of the schools they supposedly support. Very telling in a variety of ways. I would agree that part of the reason is that the "elite" tend to go for the perpetuation of the "elite" class, but in other areas, I think it's just because a lot of local public schools have turned into anarchial mis managed dumping grounds, glorified daytime baby sitters.
...easy enough to find, how about trade deficits? It used to be the USA was heavily into manufacturing, now that we shipped a lot of those jobs to china, we are running an annual trade deficit with them for goods to the tune of 141 billion dollars. Month by month it goes a little up or down, but the general year to year to year trend is up, always NOT in our favor.
We've had this scam "globalization" for decades now, and we have yet to have an economy where it approaches eveness, we always run a deficit with these second world nations we exported jobs to.
The biggest winners with globalization so far are CEOs and major stock brokerage concerns, the casino owners and riggers. and now, I don't count cheapert trinkets as being worthwhile, not when we are 73 TRILLION dollars in debt.
This topic will soon be relegated to the archives and there is a good chance this post wont be read, but I have to say it for the sake of posterity (of future topics that is).
Education is good. Education teaches a child to think, to pick out his fights, his goals, his aspirations. Despite what Pink Floyd told us, education, atleast in the less developed corners of the world, is a must. Else we run the risk of religious dogma being fed to these children, we run the risk of them being taught by unscrupulous leaders who do not value scientific thinking, who seeks to find answers in the religious texts and lives in the past while sucking tomorrow's future down in the drain with them.
I am proud that India has been kicking it up a notch, in the field of education. When a country truly cares about the intellect of its citizens and aspires to leave its future generation with the power of thought, only then it can shine among the rest of the world. I only can hope Pakistan and other of its neighbours do the same. Religious education is good, in moderation. It should be balanced by education that teaches a child to question his beliefs and that of the society and to work towards making his life and that of around him, better.
The Western world should be glad for India and anyone else who decides to take such paths.
Rapid Nirvana
Playing with numbers:
:-p
Imagine an American city with houehold income $280,470, 100x your Indian example.
Would this city spend $6500 on an educational system for the ENTIRE community. Of course! Why,
Because it's INSANELY CHEAP.
65 families chipping in 0.05% of each houeshold's income to purchase as receiver for all-day educational programming. That's a bargain.
This is a low-cost access to a valuable resource, and I can't think of any reason to trash it besides knee-jerk superiority and ignorance, coupled with a lack of comprehension of basic mathematics.
I suppose I can understand the lack of comprehension of mathematics, if you have an American education, and not, say, and Indian education.
$3/hr is good money in India. Remember the government set exchange rate with India. It is more like $30/hr in earning power. I wish I made that much in earning power during the boom much less now. Idiots are everywhere. Since when did government regulated exchange rates mean fair trade.
I guess it's an attack on open-source software by tying it to outsourcing...
Sivaram Velauthapillai
Seeking the meaning of life... @slashdot of all places
So India has found a more cost effective way of educating the population.
Nice prediction, and honestly I hope its true.
But I think we would need some objective measurement before we can determine whether or not this is a more effective way of educating the public.
If there isn't effective cirriculum to be broadcast, it could end up being a massive waste of money.
-- No matter how great your triumphs or how tragic your defeats, approximately one billion Chinese couldn't care less.
I'm not sure whether the so called edu sat
will serve India well.
If one deploys a transmitter, there ought to
be a receiver on the other end with an audience
which can partake of whatever is been transmitted.
India is a very poor country, however, because
of it's large population base, it can afford
such things as a nuclear arsenal, and a ballistics
infrastructure to deliver them. The sat which has
been deployed is nothing but a proof of concept
for furthering their nuke infrastructure.
It is ironic, that resources in poor countries
are diverted to such MAD schemes.
If I were in charge of India, I would worry about
feeding, emancipating, and educating my people,
and forming alliances with the civilized world,
this would be my best weapon.
All the exposure of India i.e. the outsourcing, etc..
are nothing but the l33t thereof, the rest of
Indians are very poor, and illiterate.
enough said..
and no hard feelings
Your view seems to be, western culture is good, eastern culture is bad. We Indians were doing just fine, till the western world came to zindia in mid 15th century. The current problems that India deals with have a lot to do with the 250 years + of slavery under the British rule rather than its culture. India has always been on the radar of the world conquerors, dating back to alexander in the BC era, to the moughal and turks in and around 1000 A.D to all kinds of europeans from 17th to 19th century.
And yet the Indian culture has survived and thrived . It has gracefully accepted all other cultures and yet maintained its own Identity.
Industrialization and world domination may be your idea of progress , but not every ones. Maybe family values and education take priorities in other cultures.Did you know, that the first book written on Classical Music in India dates back 3000 years. We had universities where not only locals but students from as fas as china and other oriental places used to study.
There is a old adage in Sanskrit, one of the oldest languages and mother of most modern day indian languages. May be it will sum up the importance of Knowledge in Indian Culture
A King is respected in his Kingdom, But a learned one is respect everywhere.
for the last time people, I am "frodo from middle eaRTH", not "middle eaST".
I can just see Bush, Cheney, Rumsfeld, Karl Rove and Ashcroft sitting around a circle plotting...
"You know, we could do away with Public Schools all together, launch about 5 of these here Indian-type satellites in geo-synchronous orbit over this great nation of ours, and start beaming down "The New Education". We control the content, you know, Evolution is out, Creationism is in, that sort of thing. And that's just the beginning!!! Think of the revenues that could be generated by embedding advertising directly into the educational content...."
Some call me paranoid, but what do you call it when it actually happens, a "good idea"??
Authority questions you. Return the favor.
Educational Service District 101/STEP Star Network in Spokane Washington has been broadcasting educational/distance learning television for years over satellite - and this school year (2004-2005) they are offering the programming for free to anyone who can pick it up.
Y'know this is actually becoming interesting, isn't it? Troll-mods have now lost a total of four whole points in order to flame anonymously; talk about cutting your nose in spite your face.
Ah well I'm sure this'll come up in meta-moderation, and a few mindless kids will be put in their place. In which case, hey, maybe this is a good thing.
I am NOT a number! I am a - oh wait, I'm number 761710. Look! 761710!
Please point where in my OP did I mention that "India is noble and west is fucked up". Infact the GP had the exact opposite view and I was merely pointing him to some facts.
Talking of meeting only brahmin indians in US, How come I haven't met any Native Americans in US , for the last 5 or so years that I have been here. Care to explain that cowboy ?
for the last time people, I am "frodo from middle eaRTH", not "middle eaST".
And now they'd like to cover prescription drugs - i.e. hand over money to drub companies and raise prices for everyone.
The west is better at taking care of it's people after getting fat on looting coutries like India and China. I am sure India will take much better care of its people that the west once we rebuild all the wealth that was stolen from us.
That's why you need to compare India and west in the years before the looting.
There have been 1 or maybe 2 sati deaths in the past 10 years and even in the past they were very rare. Are you telling me that there have been fewer suicides or murders of women after their spouses have died in the west?
Amen, brother! The world will be a much better place when the Indian GDP per capita is equivalent to the US one.
Almost every country has suffered such exploitation in one form or the other take Japan totally devastated after WW-II germany,france those who were "free" were ruled by the rich and oppressed through other means,every nation has its scars.Even America was not there few hundred years ago and it still has its problem.history should be used for learning from mistakes don't use it for putting blames...
Very few people understand the importance of this project I stay in India although I haven't stayed in a village but some of my batchmates have told me stories about the kind opf hardship they had to go to get a decent education.Unlike west where the high school dropout rate is high...here that is not encouraged the only reason for dropouts are financial where ppl cannot afford to go to big cities/ colleges / to pursue there education...this something great for India.
EDUSAT homepage
The penetration of TV is more than you know. I suspect it is more than the availability of clean water in India (the table is confusing, figure it out for yourself).
Around half the households have television (includes rural India). Education through television will work.
Science as a way of life.