H.E. President Launches ‘Nenasa’ – 1,000 Schools to be Connected to Sri Lanka’s first Satellite Television Education Bridge

H.E. the President of Sri Lanka, Mahinda Rajapaksa, launched ’Nenasa’- a state-of-the-art Digital Satellite Television based Distance Education Bridge, managed and operated by the Ministry of Education and the National Institute of Education (NIE). ’Nenasa’ will connect 1,000 rural schools in Sri Lanka to high-quality rendition of the national curriculum, developed by the NIE over a digital satellite television broadcast medium.

H.E. the President together with Minister of Education, Susil Premjayantha, launched the broadcast from a classroom in a rural school in the Moneragala district – opening a new vista in access to education to students in grades 9, 10 and 11 at the Ranjan Wijerathne Maha Vidyalaya in Pelwatta Moneragala, and simultaneously to an estimated 500,000 other students accessing ‘Nenasa’ from across Sri Lanka, including the Northern and Eastern provinces of the country.

’Nenasa‘ is a gift to the Ministry of Education and Sri Lanka’s student population from Dialog Telekom PLC – the country’s premier telecommunications service provider, which also operates a state-of-the-art digital satellite television service. The project has been funded by Dialog Telekom as a part of its Corporate Responsibility programme aimed at delivering empowerment through ICT, and is a totally non-commercial initiative of the Group.

Addressing the gathering, H. E. the President, said: “It gives me immense pleasure to be part of this event founded on the principle of rural empowerment, which is an integral focus of our Government as spelt out in the Mahinda Chinthanaya. Our Government is making every effort to harness the potential of rural Sri Lanka, with special emphasis on enhancing educational facilities in remote regions including the newly-liberated areas in the North and East. With 2009 being declared as the Year of English and IT, ‘Nenasa’ is the gateway towards achieving an empowered society in our march towards the future as one nation. I take this opportunity to commend Dialog Telekom for its sincere commitment to create a knowledge-based society through its pioneering technology and for its laudable gesture in gifting ‘Nenasa’ to the people of Sri Lanka.”

The NIE will develop content for ‘Nenasa’, which in turn will be broadcast by Dialog to 1,000 identified schools connected to the network. ‘Nenasa’ will be dedicated towards broadcasting educational content and cater to the Ordinary Level and Advanced Level syllabus in Sinhala and Tamil. In addition, teacher-training and skills development would also be included in the programme line-up. These lessons will be supplemented by a Learning Management System (LMS) through which the interactive element of ‘Nenasa’ is facilitated. The LMS enables children who have access to the internet to download educational material on Nenasa from the internet via www.nenasa.lk, which will effectively be the first time the Sri Lankan educational curriculum would become available on the internet. The Learning Management system was developed by the Mobile Communications Research Lab of the University of Moratuwa. As part of this programme, Dialog Telekom will also donate television reception equipment and audio visual devices to the rural schools identified by the Ministry of Education for connection to the Nenasa network.

“I wish to extend my sincere gratitude to His Excellency the President, the Minister of Education and the National Institute of Education and other Government and non-government agencies for giving us the opportunity to take education to rural Sri Lanka through ‘Nenasa.’ It gives us immense pride and satisfaction to steer an education programme of this magnitude that would contribute towards empowering and enriching the country’s future generations,” said, Dr. Hans Wijayasuriya, Group Chief Executive of Dialog Telekom PLC. “We are a company committed to delivering the benefits of ICT to all Sri Lankans. As such we are extremely honoured to be the founding partner of the Minstry of Education in launching Sri Lanka’s first ever digital television based education bridge,” said Dr. Wijayasuriya.