Fifty Direct-To-Home educational channels would be launched soon, which would be more interactive and different from the existing programmes on air including Gyan Darshan.

“These channels will air programmes which will be live and not pre-recorded. The new initiatives will be one of the largest anywhere in the world of its kind,” Higher Education Secretary Ashik Thakur today said.

He said the number of the channels will be increased to 1000 in the future. Speaking at a workshop on National Programme on National Mission on Education through Information and Communication Technology (NMEICT), Thakur said the entire country can be made into a big classroom which will help improve the quality of instructions in engineering colleges particularly belonging in remote areas.

The Ministry has spent more than one billion dollars for ICT. Over 400 universities and twenty thousand colleges have been linked with bandwidth and has a great potential to increase its usage.

“The Ministry may approach AICTE to make on-line education mandatory and integral part of education system,” he added.

It should be possible to share classes from IITs to other engineering colleges by making the system more user-friendly,” he said refering to promotion of virtual lab.