President of India A P J Abdul Kalam has proposed an ambitious blueprint for a tele-education revolution in the country with Rashtrapati Bhavan as the nodal hub of the project to link all major universities across India.
Speaking on the occasion of the 150th post centenary celebrations of the Calcutta University, Kalam announced the birth of the first virtual university at his New Delhi residence that aimed to network even small teaching centres in rural India. In his view this virtual university grid has the capability to trigger academic excellence and National development at an unparallel scale by expanding education to the remotest corner of the country.The idea is to have a three-pronged approach for viable distance education – creating connectivity, quality content generation and product development. UGC and EDUSAT, ISRO's dedicated education satellite, were being convinced to provide connectivity while broadband and wireless connectivity would also be needed for the purpose.
