CBSE Introduces Online Learning Courses. Likely to benefit students.

It is expected to help bridge the digital gap and offer Online learning resources to the tune of 1 Lakh questions, over 4,500 animations (animated content), 80 hours of live lectures and 6 hours of simulation lab in computerised mode.

It is expected that around 4million students from Government Schools, affiliated to the CBSE Board (Central Board of Secondary Education), will be the major beneficiaries, with the benefit of receiving cost-free resources.

For Public School students, these contents prepared by the five international and national publishers, will be available for as low as Rs. 2/- per month for grades 1 to 8, and Rs. 10/- per month for those in secondary level. The initiative is to start from August 2013 onwards.

According to the sources, CBSE has implied five publishers - both local and international to offer online learning-aid for its students and enhance the learning of the students under Continuous and Comprehensive Evaluation (CCE). The idea is to standardise the quality of education across the country.

Expected to be made available from August 2013, the contents will be in English and in the next phase they will be introduced in Hindi as well.

According to CBSE officials, five separate URLs will deliver the contents online to the students. All the resources will be online and students will be given a password which will allow them to access their class-specific contents.

"There will be question banks on subjects such as English, mathematics, science and social science. For each class, there will be 10,000 questions. There will be also contents on co-scholastics activities including life skills and performing arts. Audio-visual and animation medium will be used".

Navin Maini, the Research officer of CBSE, who is responsible for this project said, "Children are interested in animated content and its helps better understanding of the subjects in comparison to textual content. Therefore for secondary classes there will be 3,000 animations and another 1,500 animations for grades 1 to 8."

"The weblinks are already in place, and they will be formally launched probably from August. The services will be offered via school, and the payments will be done by the school. But for government school students everything will be free of cost right from the live lectures to simulation labs and question banks," he added.

Moreover, since many government school students are from economically weaker section, they may not have internet access. Hence, these contents will be made available on offline mode via CDs or pen drives too.