Sakshat.edu

India's human resources development ministry has launched a one stop education portal Sakshat.edu.in, which is aimed at students of all ages.

But GOI will remain GOI - the site has the most ill-built navigation for a site expected to be accessed by students, especially in India. The government is probably forgetting that the site will be more useful to students in small towns and villages who might even put their first step online through this website. But I would be surprised if any of these manage to go beyond the homepage of the site. Even I took a few seconds to realize that this is a 'menu-driven' site.

I clicked each of the 4 tabs on the homepage at least 5 times hoping that a new page would open, before I realized that this is a 'hi-tech' site with a unique kind of navigation. It ignores the most basic rule on the internet - 'click to open'. Instead one must hover the mouse over the 'title' of the tabs - this would pop up a menu far down on the page (another departure from Web and even basic desktop standards - wherein a menu should open exactly below your mouse pointer). It is only after you realize all this that you can start surfing.

I don't mean to be a constant crib - because the site is pretty good in that it has an RSS Aggregator covering newsfeeds on major topics in secondary education. A good editable collection of 'useful links' to which you can add your links [though editorial control over this list needs to be tight - someone has added yahoo.com to the list here ;-)] and even a Virtual Classroom. So all in all, its a good effort to bring together latest technical tools into the educational area.

Also, I read a few days ago that the government also plans to to provide Government School Teachers with PCs at home and Schools themselves with Broadband Internet Access. But it is important to recognize that our schools and students cannot leap unless taught to walk first. You cannot suddenly expect them to use a hi-tech site with menus and RSS feeds before they understand the simplest interface concepts like using hyperlinks and menus. In an educational set-up where even today, mugging is the proven method of study - it is extremely difficult to enforce the 'experience' method of study right away - that too with a ill-navigable website.

Hope some educational consultant within the ministry realizes this and simplifies the website ASAP.