HYDERABAD: Telangana’s academic year formally began online on Tuesday. Digital lessons of the Education Department -- for kindergarteners to post-graduate students -- were broadcast on T-SAT Vidya, Nipuna, Doordarshan Saptagiri and Doordarshanan Yadagiri.“T-SAT’s channels can be viewed on all digital platforms and local cable networks in the State. They can also be accessed on Airtel’s XStream app,” said R Shailesh Reddy, CEO of T-SAT. “The channels are not available on other DTH services apart from Airtel as of yet, but we are trying to do our best to broadcast the lessons on a wider scale through the Internet.”
“All the videos, particularly the ones for primary school children, are not being uploaded on YouTube. But they can be watched live,” he said. He added that on Tuesday alone, the T-SAT app had over two lakh constant viewers from 9 am to 4 pm. “The content broadcast live on Tuesday was for students of Classes V to X. Peak viewership was observed in the early hours of the same day. Users watched 11,75,921 videos in a single day in different sessions,” Shailesh Reddy said.
The app saw around 30,000 downloads on a single day with 1,56,658 peak-hour real-time users. Over 45,000 people subscribed to its official YouTube channel, taking the total to 4.6 lakh subscribers. When Express had reviewed the channel a fortnight ago, only 14-20 people were watching it. According to Internet and Mobile Association of India’s (IAMAI) 2019 report, Internet penetration in Telangana is only 31 per cent.
There are around 24 lakh students who study in government schools in Telangana. “Online response is unprecedented. We do not know how many people are watching T-SAT Vidya, Nipuna, Doordarshan Saptagiri and Doordarshanan Yadagiri live, but we sure know it must be a lot more than the online figures,” Shailesh Reddy. The Director of School Education Department directed all the District Education Officers (DEO) to meet the District Collectors and arrange for compulsory broadcast of the T-SAT network on priority basis.
JNTUH holds online classes for BTech, MBA students on T-SAT
The Jawaharlal Nehru Technological University, Hyderabad, (JNTU-H) started online classes for B Tech and B Pharm, as well as for MBA- and MCA-affiliated institutes from Tuesday. The university released the revised academic calendar recently, according to which, second-, third- and fourth-year students from 483 affiliated institutes would have to attend the online classes on various platforms using the T-SAT network. “Initially, the classes will be conducted online for two to three hours per day, and may be extended to four-five hours. The prescribed protocols/guidelines related to Covid-19 will be followed,” the calendar read. In the revised calendar, JNTU-H asked the teachers to mark the attendance of students attending the online classes.