Trivandrum: The ‘First Bell’ classes introduced by the State Education Department through its KITE (Kerala Infrastructure and Technology for Education) VICTERS educational channel have crossed the 1,000 classes milestone.
According to a release, the initiative was launched on June 01, 2020, as an interim arrangement (and not as an alternate class) in the backdrop of the State schools remaining closed due to the Covid-19 pandemic. This unique initiative has ensured that not even a single student miss out any classes during these testing times. Through the First Bell programme, 604 classes were aired through KITE VICTERS channel in addition to 274 Kannada medium classes and 163 Tamil medium classes. The channel is telecast through local cable networks and DTH platforms across the state.
In addition to the viewership of classes on TV, the web-streaming platform of KITE VICTERS (www.victers.kite.kerala.gov.in) has also seen tremendous response which is evident from that fact that as many as 442 TeraByte data has been reported from 141 countries. The monthly views of the YouTube channel (www.youtube.com/itsvicters) are 150 Million (15 Crores). The average daily viewership of classes on YouTube is 54 lakhs, which translates to a whopping 5 lakh hours a day. Despite limited advertisements, the advertisement revenue stands at an average of Rs.15 lakhs per month. The classes are also broadcasted through Facebook ‘LIVE’ on the Facebook page of the channel www.facebook.com/victerseduchannel .
K Anvar Sadath, CEO of KITE said, “Several places in the State including Thiruvananthapuram is a hotspot restricting the movement of people, which impact the preparation of classes and to tackle this crisis, KITE has made arrangements for preparation of classes from different districts. To supplement this decentralised process, KITE has planned to provide necessary support through the 2,000+ schools where Little KITEs units have been set-up.”
At present, Augmented Reality and Virtual Reality are being used to the extent possible, which would be expanded in due course. The schools would be making use of the Free Software based applications for developing the classes to be aired through KITE VICTERS channel. New classes of general nature, beyond subjects and including sports would be ready from August onwards.
Kerala Biz News