Samsung to set up ‘Smart Class’ at 14 colleges in Andhra Pradesh

Korean electronics company Samsung on Monday has entered a pact with the Andhra Pradesh government to set up ‘Samsung Smart Class’ in 14 government colleges, taking the total number of its digital smart class in India to 683, said an official.

The smart class, under the UNESCO-MGIEP (Mahatma Gandhi Institute of Education for Peace and Sustainable Development) initiative ‘Teaching Teachers for Technology’, will offer courses such as Bachelors of Education (B.Ed) and a diploma in education (D.Ed) in the state.

Samsung’s digital class would deliver 200 hours of course curriculum being developed with an aim to help state-run college staffs adapt transmissive teaching that digital technologies have to offer, it said.

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UNESCO-MGIEP is developing the content of the course so that future teachers could be trained to teach students with the help of the latest technology by using digital pedagogies, the official said.

“We are going to introduce digital instruction design and training as part of the B.Ed course with 200 hours of curriculum developed by UNESCO-MGIEP. Samsung has been an enabler in this endeavour by equipping all government B.Ed and D.Ed colleges with smart class,” state Special Chief Secretary (education) Adityanath Das said.

The partnership seeks to help teachers adopt digital teaching technologies to bring in a behavioural and attitudinal shift for integrating new educational possibilities offered by technology, the official said.

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Samsung’s interactive Technology will help to teach effectively, improving the quality of teaching and building capacity at government schools, it said.

Every smart class would be equipped with interactive Samsung Smartboards, Samsung tablets, printer and Wi-Fi connectivity, the release added.

Samsung Smart Class is currently available at 652 Jawahar Navodaya Vidyalaya schools, 28 Government schools in Tamil Nadu and three Delhi Police Public Schools.

Since its inception in 2013, the initiative has benefitted by over 2.5 lakh students and more than 8,000 teaching staffs have been trained on it.

(With inputs from agencies)