telecentre.org – Jamsetji Tata Training School, India

The first academy came up in India with funding support from the Tata Trust. Thus, the telecentre.org Indian Academy was launched at a function in Coimbatore in February 2007 by the Hon'ble Minister of State for Higher Education, Smt D Purandeshwari in the presence of Professor M S Swaminathan, Chairperson of the M S Swaminathan Research Foundation, Professor V N Rajasekharan Pillai of the Indira Gandhi National Open University, Dr Basheerhamad Shadrach of telecentre.org, Dr Vikas Goswami of Microsoft India and Professor Ramaswamy of the Tamilnadu Agricultural University.

The Academy was called the telecentre.org-Jamshedji Tata National Virtual Academy. It introduced a number of courses and focused to train people at the community level, and also at the telecentre operators' level. Over 15 national programs and scores of regional programs have so far been organized by the Academy. Over 5000 participants attended these training programs and learned skills relating to telecentre operations. They learned about results-based management, participatory research, needs assessment, ways to run online discussion forums, and also procedures relating to basic operations of telecentres.

The Indian telecentre.org Academy, hosted by the M S Swaminathan Research Foundation, carries out its training program in partnership with the Mission 2007 partners, local NGOs, the state-level agencies implementing the national eGovernance Plan and the Common Service Centres in several states in India. Further, in partnership with the Indian Space Research Organisation under the Village Resource Centreprogram, the Indian telecentre.org Academy utilizes the state-of-the-art technologies, such as the country wideclassroom, video-conferencing over EduSat and Radio programs as well as face-to-face tutoring for deliveringits training programs.

The latest course conducted by the Indian telecentre.org Academy was on the topic of results-based management on July 27-30, 2009. The program aimed to enhance the monitoring and evaluation skills of telecentre staff.

The program responded to the long-standing demand of telecentre networks for skills in resulted-oriented approaches using both qualitative and quantitative techniques. Nancy Anabel, the coordinator of the resultsbased management program highlighted the following topics of the course: concept of result based management at different stages of project cycle; concept of SMART results; development of outcomes, outputs and activities; and, logical framework analysis.

Contact: S Senthilkumaran (senthil@mssrf.res.in)