Nenesa TV expands coverage to bridge education gap

Tuesday, 25 October 2011 01:49 - - {{hitsCtrl.values.hits}}

Nenasa TV, the satellite based television channel developed to bridge the education gap between urban and rural Sri Lanka is expanding its reach to connect another 1,000 schools into the programme with the aim of making education accessible to all.

The new MOU (Memorandum of Understanding) to expand Dialog Nenasa TV was signed yesterday between Dr. Hans Wijayasuriya, Group Chief Executive at Dialog Axiata PLC and, Bandula Gunawardena, The Minister for Education.

The Nenasa programme was developed under the Mahinda Chinthanaya education plan to address the disparity of access to knowledge between urban and rural Sri Lanka through ICT (Information Communication Technology).

In 2009, Ranjan Wijerathne Maha Vidyalaya in Pelwatta, Moneragala District became the first school in Sri Lanka to join the Nenasa TV programme.

“Nenasa is an excellent platform to take education to schools in the rural peripheries of Sri Lanka,” Bandula Gunawardena, Minister of Education said. “A satellite based system has almost no geographic limitation which offers a tremendous opportunity for us to extend knowledge and bridge the education gap in rural constituencies.”

The state of the art satellite based distance education programme is operated by the Ministry of Education, while a high quality telecast edition of the national education curriculum for Ordinary Level and Advance Level students is developed by the National Institute of Education (NIE). The education syllabus is available in Sinhala and Tamil.

The developed curriculum is transmitted to the rural school network via DTV (Dialog Television). DTV, a satellite-based broadcaster, is a subsidiary of Dialog Axiata.

“It is indeed a great honour and privilege for us to be part of Ministry of Education’s first ICT based education bridge that has the ability to reach out to any part of the Island via digital broadcast technology,” Dr. Hans Wijayasuriya, Group Chief Executive at Dialog Axiata PLC said.

“Nenasa is a gift from Dialog to uplift rural education in Sri Lanka. ICT has the potential of becoming the great equaliser in the sphere of knowledge and empower rural education.” “Dialog Axiata is committed to extend a helping hand to uplift education especially in rural Sri Lanka. It is our firm belief that knowledge is the key to maximising the potential of Sri Lankan youth across the country and Dialog would continue its support to make education accessible to all,” Dr. Wijayasuriya further said.

Dialog Axiata PLC, an ISO 9001 certified company, is a subsidiary of Axiata Group Berhad. The company operates 2.5G and 3/3.5G Mobile Communications networks supporting the very latest in multimedia and mobile Internet services.

Dialog has the distinction of being the first 3G operator in South Asia to commence commercial operations. Its local coverage spans all provinces of Sri Lanka, while international roaming is provided in over 200 destinations. Dialog Axiata, the largest and fastest growing cellular service in Sri Lanka also operates Dialog Television a direct-to-home satellite television service and Dialog Broadband Network - providing backbone and transmission infrastructure facilities and data communication services, serving a subscriber base in excess of 7 million Sri Lankans.