PANAJI
Chief Minister Pramod Sawant launched Dishtavo, a YouTube channel with academic content including lectures, accessible online and offline, to aid Colleges carry on instructional work through the COVID-19 disruption in the current and future academic years.
The portal already has 1,000 videos uploaded of lectures and other e-learning content across all degree programmes and years of study. Another 2,500 more videos have already been shot and will be uploaded after post-production editing is complete.
Director of Higher Education, Prasad Lolayenkar, the silent warhorse who led the team that built the channel, acknowledged issues with internet connectivity will be an impediment.
Lolayenkar however said a programme which envisages a concept of E-Mitra, whereby students with good connectivity will tag on and help transfer the videos and content to peers who don't, is being introduced to overcome it. Every College will have e-mitras, he added.
Sawant lauded the efforts of the DHE and claimed that Goa is prhaps the "first and only" State to take the entire academic syllabi of higher education on an e-platform.
According to Lolayekar a team of 55 technical teachers from colleges in the State was formed to create DISHTAVO. "It is a complete in-house project by the Government of Goa. Every video has gone through a rigorous process of editing, vetting, and re-creating.
Some 1,200 teachers were involved in the entire initiative and studios of Goa University and Chowgule College, Margao were utilized.
