IIT-Madras to take basic digital literacy to rural children in Tamil Nadu – Times of India

CHENNAI: IIT-Madras Pravartak Technologies Foundation in collaboration with the Asha For Education on Friday launched two rural technology centres to take digital literacy to remote and rural government school students in Tamil Nadu. These centres in Kanakammachathram and Seethanjeri villages in Tiruvallur district will teach basic digital literacy and basics of programming after assessing the students.
Government school students studying in classes IX to XII are set to learn advanced technologies like drones, 3D printing, robotics, artificial intelligence besides animation, webpage design and hardware-based programming, among others.
In a release, IIT-Madras director V Kamakoti said the setting up of these two rural technology centres marked the beginning of a journey of providing access to quality education and technology to students belonging to rural areas.
“There are plans to launch more such rural technology centres near government schools this year,” the release added.
“We wanted to open the centres close to higher secondary schools so that the students will be able to attend courses in our centres in the evening after their school hours. Most children do not get any opportunity to learn computer science and other technologies,” said Rajaraman Krishnan from Asha For Education which is working on educating underprivileged children.
They will use programming tools such as Scratch from Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) and “Blockly” from Google to teach programming.
T Gunasekar, headmaster, Government Higher Secondary School, K anakammachathram, said, “This school is located in a rural area that mainly educates students from weaker sections. This initiative to educate students on computers is of great benefit.”
“This free training programme in computer science will help rural students develop their knowledge of computers,” K G Muralidhar, headmaster of Government Higher Secondary School in Seethanjeri, said.