The ‘First Bell’ classes introduced by the State Education Department through its KITE (Kerala Infrastructure and Technology for Education) VICTERS educational channel has now crossed over 1000 classes. The initiative was launched on 1st June 2020 as an interim arrangements ( and not as an alternate class ) in the backdrop of the State schools remaining closed due to Covid-19 pandemic and this unique initiative has ensured that not even a single student miss out any classes during these testing times. Through the First Bell program, 604 classes were aired through KITE VICTERS channel in addition to 274 Kannada medium classes and 163 Tamil medium classes telecast through local cable networks in the state.
In addition to the viewership of classes through the channel mode, the web-streaming platform of KITE VICTERS (www.victers.kite.kerala.gov.in) has also seen tremendous response which is evident from that fact that as many as 442 TeraByte data has been reported from 141 countries. The monthly views of the YouTube channel (www.youtube.com/itsvicters) is 150 million. The average daily viewership of classes in youtube alone is 54 lakhs, which translates to a whopping 5 lakh hours a day. Despite limited advertisements, the advertisement revenue stands at an average Rs.15 lakhs per month. The classes are also broadcasted through Facebook ‘LIVE’ on the Facebook page of the channel www.facebook.com/victerseduchannel .
Due to Covid-19 pandemic, several places in the State including the Capital, Thiruvananthapuram has been made hotspots restricting movement of people, which impact the preparation of classes and to tackle this crisis, KITE has made arrangements for preparation of classes from different districts. “ To supplement this decentralised process, KITE has planned to provide necessary support through the 2000+ schools where Little KITEs units has been set-up.”, K. Anvar Sadath, Chief Executive Officer, KITE.
At present, Augmented Reality and Virtual Reality are being used to the extent possible. The schools would be making use of the Free Software applications for developing the classes to be aired through KITE VICTERS channel. New classes of general nature, beyond subjects and including sports would be ready from August onwards.
