Bengaluru, Feb 26 : The Karnataka government on Friday signed an agreement with Cognizant Technology Solutions India Pvt Ltd and Rotary Club Whitefield to provide 12,500 de-bonded desktop computers to the first-grade government colleges in the state as part of the ‘Help Educate’ initiative, Deputy Chief Minister C.N.Ashwath Narayana said.
This initiative is part of the Karnataka Learning Management System (Karnataka LMS) based digital learning.The Karnataka LMS initiative is aimed at training around 24,000 teachers and 4.5 lakh students of 430 government first grade colleges, 87 government polytechnics and 14 government engineering colleges.
Addressing reporters after Cognizant Technology and Rotary Club signed an agreement with the Department of Collegiate Education and Technical Education (DCTE) here, Narayana, who also holds the Higher Education portfolio, said, “The ‘Help Educate’ initiative is aimed at partnering with MNCs and philanthropists to educate and train students, train professors in modern methodology through faculty development programmes and digital teaching and also equip the government colleges with digital assets in order to adopt digital learning which is both a recent trend and also a necessity of times.”
He added that Cognizant India will provide 12,500 de-bonded desktop computers, while the Rotary Club has come forward to instal Windows operating system and Office 365 besides taking care of transportation and installation of the desktops in the respective colleges.
The Deputy CM explained that the initiative’s prime objective is to facilitate the government first grade colleges with computers and make a difference in the learning of students, most of whom hail from a socio-economically marginalised background.
“These 12,500 desktop computers will be distributed among all the government first grade colleges to establish computer laboratories for the use of the students,” he said.
Narayana said that the government colleges need at least 30,000 computers, but under this initiative, 12,500 computers are being provided.
“This contribution is valued about Rs 50 crore and will help fill the digital divide of the students studying in government colleges,” Narayana said, as he hoped that many more MNCs would come forward to contribute to this initiative.
Launched in November last year, the Karnataka LMS is a comprehensive system which aims to empower teachers, enrich students and bridge the digital divide
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