Amrita – IIT partnership to empower teachers nation wide

Amrita and IIT

20 Dec 2010
In a historic partnership, IIT (Indian Institute of Technology) Bombay and Amrita University have come together to deliver a nationwide teacher empowerment program delivered online via India’s emerging high speed educational network. The goals of this program are to improve the quality of teachers in professional colleges to world class levels.

Amrita University and IIT

Over 1000 college teachers from around 500 professional institutions gathered at 32 nodal centers across the country to attended a 2-week online workshop on “Database Management Systems” from the 13th to the 22nd of December 2010. The session was led by Dr. Sudarshan, IIT Bombay Professor and the renowned author of the standard international textbook on Database Systems. These 32 remote centers used the A-VIEW (Amrita Virtual Interactive E-Learning World) system developed by Amrita University, to connect and communicate.

These online workshops for improving the quality of teachers are the brainchild of Prof. D.B. Phatak, Subrao M. Nilekani Chair Professor, IIT Bombay, who said, “It is gratifying to see that my dream to empower thousands of college teachers in core engineering courses has been realized.” National Knowledge Commission in its findings has concluded that the low quality of higher education is one of the key factors affecting India’s economic growth.

Mr. S. Ramadorai, Tata Consultancy Services vice-chairman and software industry pioneer, while addressing the participants today said, “India’s future depends on the capabilities and expertise of its human capital. It is the academic community that can play a transformation role in building this future. This ‘first of its kind’ online national teacher empowerment program is a bold step towards building excellence amongst the teaching community. This unique operation should be scaled for much wider usage in coming years, spanning all dimensions of Indian education including schools.”

IIT Bombay Director Prof. Devang Khakhar in his address said that IIT Bombay is committed to make a difference to education and research in Indian academia through several outreach programs.