The Asianage (11/25/2005 10:43:55 PM)
Mumbai, Nov. 25: Cyber cafes in India have the potential to become the educational centres of our nation, said Mr R.N. Bhaskar, chairman, E-Convergence Technologies Ltd, at a seminar on Thursday on “cyber cafes future prospects and challenges.”
“While we have only 5,50,000 broadband connections, China has 30 million. Using cyber cafes for education can become big business with the advent of voice telephony and the increase in broadband connections in the nation,” he said.
With a major dearth of skilled teachers in the country and with only three per cent of the population having completed graduate study, cyber experts suggested the use of virtual education classes over broadband connections as an effective method in lowering the cost of education and in reaching out to rural villages. There are more than 1,05,000 cyber cafes in the country and cyber cafes were reported to be growing at 45 per cent annually.
