Project Overview

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E-LEARNING IN RURAL AREAS OF NEPAL TO PREPARE A
GLOBAL CITIZEN
Prepared by Archana Bhattarai Asian Institute
of Technology Bangkok, Thailand
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Presentation Outline

• Present Scenario
• Challenges to be faced
• Methodology
• Technology Considerations
• Conclusion

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Present Scenario

• Population of Nepal
• 23.4 million
• 15 major racial groups.
• 86 percent live in rural areas
• Agriculture for livelihood
• Rural people lack access to basic needs
• Education
• Health care

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Present Scenario

• Literacy rate of Nepal Educated population
• 58 of male
• 22.8 of female
• Present education compelling and disturbing.
• The current weakness attributable to
• shortage of teachers
• lack of effective teaching methods.

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Education facilitated by IT

• By providing applications such as
• Distance learning programs
• Rural digital library
• Analysis and simulation
• Multimedia presentation
• Self test modules etc.

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Challenges Rural Areas

• Factors disturbing the education system
• Adverse geography
• Limited experts
• Lack of appropriate teaching method
• Sparsely distributed population

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Challenges in the use of E-Learning

• Extraordinary pace of technology change
• Rapid depreciation through obsolescence of
  investments in IT equipment
• Outdated school infrastructure
• Under-provision of basic teaching aids
• An examination-oriented curriculum
• Large class sizes
• Lack of support for teachers.

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Challenges in the use of E-Learning in Nepal

• Funding
• Implementation costs compounded by the rapid
  obsolescence of education technologies.
• Designing strategies
• To provide students with equal access to
  information technologies- complex task
• Technological "haves" and "have-nots" among our
  nation's people.

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Challenges contd..

• Internet distribution
• that links people in a global network-
  distributed unevenly
• Digital divide
• creating a new class of people with well trained
  and global knowledge based society compared to
  untrained and underprivileged.

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Challenges contd..

• Social Perspective
• Policy considerations
• formulation and implementation of policies are
  still rudimentary
• Availability of human resources
• manpower are lacking especially in the rural
  areas of Nepal.

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Challenges contd..

• Social Perspective
• Cost Considerations
• 38 of the total population below income poverty
  line-one dollar per day.
• cannot afford the consumer costs associated with
  extending basic infrastructures to the rural
  communities.
• Language Barrier
• Information available- mostly in English,
• majority of rural communities cannot understand.
• shortage of relevant material in local languages

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Challenges contd..

• Technical perspective
• Lack of basic infrastructures like
• Telecommunication
• Electricity
• Rural access to telephones
• Severely restricted with low density in those
  areas.
• Only about 1761 VDCs (45 of total VDCs) have
  access to telecommunication facilities.

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Challenges contd..

• Technical perspective
• Electricity supply- limited to about 18 of the
  total population
• whereas the rural population -just about 5.
• Internet Services- concentrated in major cities
  of Nepal,
• very limited point of presence (POP) of Internet
  Service Providers(ISPs).
• ISPs have not yet penetrated to remote areas.
• only 0.67 Internet hosts per 10,000 inhabitants
  and 26.39 Internet users per 10,000 inhabitants .

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Challenges contd..

• Technical perspective
• Severely low computer penetration
• Only about 0.35 PCs per 100 inhabitants .
• Adverse geographical conditions
• very difficult if not impossible to set the
  connections physically, to all the villages and
  rural areas in Nepal.

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Methodology

• Formal Learning aspect
• Informal Learning aspect

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Formal Learning
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Methodology

• Share teachers among several schools
• Few good teachers can be scaled up to teach
  thousands of students
• Merge of videoconferencing with computer
  coursework
• Students watch their teacher on a projection
  screen in the front of the classroom
• A teacher hundreds of miles away delivers
  lectures on subjects

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Basic Components

• Login/logout to manage members
• Courseware and web documents for instructional
  materials
• Video On Demand (VOD)/Lecture On Demand (LOD)
• Assignments board
• Online Examinations
• Questions and Answers board
• Online guideline for the learning system

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Video on Demand

• Major activity in rural E-Learning
• Provides proper contents of e-teaching and
  learning system.
• Record of short lecture
• help learners understand easily.
• Lecture screen
• Presents
• Instructional materials (Slides/Documents)
• video screen to show lecturers face.

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Informal Learning
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Methodology

• World Wide Web
• Expands the physical limits of the school
• Huge amount of information on the click
• Access to the resources around the world
• Student-Student or teacher-teacher collaboration
• Different schools around the globe
• Tools Search Engines, Emails

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Methodology

• Digital Library
• Information Specific to rural students and other
  villagers
• Could be networked among various villages nearby
• High quality study material
• Relatively low cost installation

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Internet Connectivity Considerations
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Connectivity Architecture
Source for internet connection
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Connectivity considerations

• Wired networks cannot be used in rural areas of
  Nepal
• Due to the physical isolation and difficult
  topographical conditions
• Installation would be too costly
• Maintaining reliability is not cost effective.

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Connectivity considerations

• Appropriate technology- wireless network
• Install and implement the network in a short span
  of time
• The installation- movable and hence can be
  changed as and when needed.

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Chosen Networking Technology

• IEEE 802.11b

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802.11b (WI-FI) Description

• Operates at 2.4 GHz ISM band
• Usually used in a point-to-multipoint
  configuration
• Access point communicates via an omni-directional
  antenna
• One or more clients that are located in a
  coverage area around the access point
• Typical indoor range
• 30 m at 11 Mbit/s
• 90 m at 1 Mbit/s.
• With high-gain external antennas

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802.11b (WI-FI) - USE

• To use for rural connectivity
• Used in fixed point-to-point arrangements
• Range- 10 km
• With appropriate antennas and amplifiers
• Point-to-point connectivity at a maximum
  distance of 20 km.
• Given- Line of sight can be established.
• Vulnerable to intruders
• Security not so important in the case

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Conclusion

• Technology should be applied to education
• Helps the rural people to be a part of the
  information globe
• The rural disadvantaged are yet to benefit from
  the information technology revolution
• The information gap is increasing
• Between those who live in rural areas and in
  urban districts
• Between the rich and the poor
• Rural e-Teaching and Learning System needed to
  strengthen the rural people economically and
  socially

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Thank You !