Thiruvananthapuram: Kerala Infrastructure and Technology for Education (KITE) joined hands with BSNL on Wednesday to equip close to 5000 schools in Kerala with internet connectivity. High schools, higher secondary schools and vocational higher secondary schools in the state will be provided with 100 Mbps broadband internet connectivity.
The existing 8 Mbps FTTH (Fiber to the Home) connections in schools will now be upgraded to a 12.5 times faster 100 Mbps connection.
KITE CEO K Anwar Sadath and BSNL Kerala Circle BSNL CGM CV Vinod signed the MoU in the presence of Public Education Minister V.Sivan Kutty, according to IANS.
100 Mbps Broadband Internet Connectivity will benefit 45000 classrooms in 4685 schools included in the Hi-Tech Schools scheme will benefit from better ICT-enabled education. As part of the 2018 Hi-Tech School project,
KITE deployed laptops, projectors, USB speakers and networking in these classes.
Even though at present Samagra Resource Portal and Sahitham mentoring portal is available in all classrooms in offline mode, with the availability of 100 Mbps connection in classrooms, all such Digital/Online systems can now be used more effectively.
This would also enable the availability of the KITE VICTERS educational channel in all classrooms.
BSNL has agreed to enhance the broadband connection in schools to 100Mbsps without any additional cost and adhering to the existing rate of Rs 10000/- (+GST) by which the earlier 8 Mbps broadband connection was provided.
Each school can now use up to 3300 GB of data per month as per this plan.
"This step would indeed strengthen the initiatives of the State towards becoming a Knowledge Society", said State Education Minister V. Sivan Kutty.