School textbooks in VCDs

Dharma Sri ABEYRATNE

The Education Publications Department will launch a series of Video Compact Disks (VCDs) with the contents of textbooks.

Core subjects will available on VCD under the first phase.

Under the e-Sri Lanka Programme, the ICTA has assisted the Education Ministry to issue the set of VCDs. These VCDs can be purchased from Education Publications Department outlet at reasonable rates, the Commissioner General of Education Publications W.M.N. Pushpakumara said.

As the result of the launch, the students will be able to make the best use of the textbooks since the same lessons together with illustrations which are in textbooks can be utilised with multi-media such as computers, projectors or any other media player.

The students show reluctance to use heavy textbooks. These VCDs are ideal for them since one can use, quote or browse any information available on VCDs within a few seconds just with one mouse click. The students can easily understand the contents as they are available in Sinhala and Tamil medium, an Education Ministry spokesman said.

The Sinhala and Tamil fonts (Sinhala and Tamil Unicode) which may need to view contents of VCDs can be downloaded free of charge from the website www.siyabas.lk. In addition the software which would be needed for installing Sinhala and Tamil Unicode are also enclosed with the VCDs.