High-speed Internet labs to be set up in 14 villages

Tribune News Service

Nabha, May 25

Stage is set for high-speed Internet labs to be set up in 14 villages of the Nabha sub-division where students would learn through team work and self-choice using computers and high-speed Internet.

The villages have been selected on the basis of having more than 50 per cent SC population or having a large chunk of shamlat land. The villages include Ajnauda Khurd, Galwatti, Kakrala, Sandnauli, Sukhewal, Tarkhedi Khurd, Udha, Bheelowal, Faridpur, Gadhayia, Ramgarh, Thuhi, Sadhoheri and Pedhan. The labs are likely to be opened after the summer vacation, enabling the student for self- learning.

The district administration has already instructed the village panchayats to be ready with the rooms for the lab by the end of May so that the rest of the work could be completed by June end.

According to information, the project is the brainchild of Sugata Mitra, professor of educational technology at New Castle University, England. After observing its positive results in various countries, the administration had approached him for setting up an initiative to set up self-organised learning environment (SOLE) labs in these schools with the help of a social enterprise, ‘Round Glass. 

The administration is planning to expand the project in the district after attaining success in its 56 villages.

Shaukat Ahmed Pare, ADC (Development), said Nabha had the maximum number of villages with more than 50 per cent Dalit population. The administration has received Rs 80 lakh from the Chief Minister’s discretionary funds for the project and Rs 96 lakh had been taken from the SC sub-plan as 24 villages with the SC majority had been chosen. Computers worth Rs 70 to 80 lakh for over 30 schools will be provided by Round Glass. He said the basic idea was to inculcate inquisitiveness among children.

Pare said the administration had chosen 24 villages where there were over 50 per cent Scheduled Caste (SC) inhabitants and rest of the villages had been chosen on the basis of the capacity of panchayats who had sufficient income from personal sources to fund power and Internet bills.

The panchayats would be paying for the bills of power and Internet used in the system, the ADC (Development) added.