plan to train kids on IT skills through vernacular languages

The Union Government plans to train children not proficient in English speaking on IT skills through vernacular languages, a top official of the Spoken Tutorial Project, IIT Bombay, said today.
"Children across the country are very intelligent and have maximum technical skills, but may not be good in English speaking and they will be taught in vernacular languages," Shyama Iyer, National Training Coordinator for the project, said.
She was speaking at an orientation programme for faculty of Sri Krishna Institutions here.
Pointing out that Information Technology skills are taught in 15 local languages in India,she said IT should reach all and maximum IT skills should be given to rural children free of cost.

Inclusion of IT with rural people activities was the need of the hour and every villager should understand how to use IT, Shyama said, adding Government has a National Mission to bring rural public on the IT system.
She said there is good scope for e learning resources like Spoken Tutorial in Tamil Nadu, which leads in IT learning

As of now 4.2 lakh persons in 500 colleges in Tamil Nadu have been trained by IIT Bombay. Though this figure was very low compared with the enrolment ratio, Tamil Nadu was at the top in IT learning, Shyama said.
The Spoken Tutorial Project is an initiative of the National Mission on Education through Information and Communication Technology of the HRD Ministry, aimed at promoting IT literacy through Open Source Software.

Under the project, courses prepared by IIT Bombay are taught through Audio-Visual tutorials and certificates given free of cost, Shyama said.