State Govt. & NIIT take computer education to deep interiors of Meghalaya
State Govt. & NIIT take computer education to deep interiors of Meghalaya
National Winner of NIIT’s Digital Art Festival gets felicitated by Education Minister
Shillong, April 18, 2007: In an effort to promote IT and IT assisted education at the school level, Asia’s largest IT trainer NIIT, organized a unique painting competition for school children who are being taught computes by NIIT, across the country. With MS Office ‘Paint and Power Point’ as his canvas and the ‘Mouse’ as his brush, Master Marvin Kharsohnoh, class VIIIth student from Pomlum Deficit Secondary School, East Khasi Hills, Meghalaya, created a Digital Painting which bagged the first prize in the Junior category of the painting contest titled ‘Digital Art Festival 2006’.
Minister for Education & IT, Government of Meghalaya, Mr. Robert Garnett Lyngdoh felicitated Marvin at an event organized by NIIT, here today. Minister also inaugurated a Kiosk with the unique Computer Aided Learning Software developed by NIIT to promote Computer Aided Learning among young learners, under the Sarva Shiksha Abhiyan initiative of the State Government. The Kiosk meant to bring people closer to computers in the remote areas of the state will be set up at 10 locations.
Addressing a large gathering of school kids and their mentors, Mr. Lyngdoh underscored the importance of computer education in today’s knowledge economy and urged them to look at computer education seriously for a promising career. School kids in 36 state government schools are being taught computers by IT training pioneer, NIIT and there are plans to take it further in the state, in association with the Government.
Speaking on the occasion, Mr. Debdash Banerjee, Zonal Head, NIIT K-12 said “We are delighted by the overwhelming response to this initiative. We at NIIT believe that computer education not only helps raise the standard of learning in school, it also increases the performance level of students in other subjects”.
Smt. R.V. Suchiang, Commissioner & Secretary, Education Dept.; Mr. D.P. Wahlang, Secretary, Dept. of Education & IT; Mr. P.M. Syiem, MLA & Chairman of Resource Mobilization were among the other State Government officials who were present on the occasion.
NIIT’s Digital Art Festival is a competition aimed at promoting creativity through use of computers among school students. The national winner of Digital Art Festival 2006 in the junior category, Marvin Kharsohnoh, was earlier awarded by NIIT Brand Ambassador and MindChampion Viswanathan Anand (Vishy), in Chennai. Over 56,000 school children from 4,000 schools across the country participated in the Digital Painting Contest.
The digitally created paintings by young learners can be seen not only as a piece of art but they bear ample testimony to how computers can be used effectively in children overall skill development.
Chess Master 2006 is another unique initiative of NIIT and NIIT MindChampion Viswanathan Anand which exposes students in the age group of 6-17 years to the world of Chess.
NIIT K12 initiative in Meghalaya
NIIT, as part of the computer literacy programme by the Directorate of Higher & Technical Education, Govt. of Meghalaya, has been offering computer education in 36 government schools, equipping these institutes with cutting-edge infrastructure and offering specialized training to empower young learners with crucial IT skills. Over 8,000 school children in Meghalaya have so far been trained by NIIT, in addition to 110 teachers who have been trained on the Computer Aided Learning software, under the Sarva Shiksha Abhiyan initiative. NIIT has also developed software for 10 Community Information Centres (CICs) under the IT Department, Meghalaya.