Perspective Approach in Remote Sensing Training

Perspective Approach in Remote Sensing Training

AK Gupta, K Ganesha Raj and MG Chandrasekhar
Indian Space Research Organisation Headquarters
Bangalore-560 094, India

Abstract
Human resource development is utmost important for the operational utilization of developing technologies such as remote sensing. In India, increasing utilization of remote sensing in various sector of natural resources management has necessitated the development of adequate number of trained personnel to harvest the benefits arising out of the technology. Increasing need of trained manpower has necessitated that the perspective approach be followed for human resource development in remote sensing. The paper discusses various issues involved with remote sensing training in India. Ways are suggested on how to meet the gap in trained manpower keeping in view the future growth in remote sensing technology and make remote sensing training courses more effective and useful to the end users.

1.0 Introduction
In India, considerable growth in remote sensing technology has been achieved over past one and half decade. This includes, operational utilization of remote sensing technology in monitoring and management of natural resources, establishment of State Remote Sensing Application Centres (RSACs), establishment of Regional Remote Sensing Services Centres (RRSSCs) and setting up of remote sensing cells in a large number of central and state user departments and university centres etc. Nearly 850 persons are trained every year in the country in the field of remote sensing technology/applications. Increasing need of trained manpower has made it imperative that a perspective approach be followed for human resource development in this area to meet the immediate and future requirements of trained personnel. Increasing requirement of trained personnel for utilization of remote sensing has necessitated to retook into our training policies and workout methods to meet the immediate and future requirements of trained personnel in remote sensing.

1.1 Present Scenario-Remote Sensing Training and Education
Over 5000 persons have been trained in India in remote sensing techniques by the training institutions within the country. At present training in remote sensing is being imparted by institutes/ organisations like Indian Institute of Remote Sensing (IIRS)-Dehradun, National Remote Sensing Agency (NRSA)- Hyderabad, Regional Remote Sensing Service Centres (RRSSCs), Centre for Studies in Resources Engineering (CSRE)-IIT, Bombay, Institute for Remote Sensing-Anna University – Madras, Geological Survey of India Training Institute-Hyderabad, National Bureau of Soil Survey & Land Use Planning (NBSS&LUP)-Nagpur and Bangalore, Central Ground Water Board (CGWB)-Faridabad. Forest Survey of India (FSI)-Dehradun and Space Applications Centre0Ahmedabad etc., to mainly in service scientists/engineers. About 12 universities offer Post Graduate and Doctoral courses in remote sensing and in about 50 universities remote sensing is taught as a part of paper in Post Graduate courses such as Geology, Geography, Civil Engineering, Agriculture, Soil Science, etc. (Ganesha Raj, 1991, NNRMS, 1989). In the recent years need for formal education in remote sensing has been realised. Beginning has been made towards introduction of remote sensing in the educational curriculum. Remote sensing syllabus to be included as part in subjects dealing with study of natural resources has been worked out. Efforts are being made to implement the same in the existing text books at school and university levels within a reasonable time frame.

1.1.2 Perspective Approach:
Perspective approach to remote sensing training will mean reorientation of training after careful consideration of all the related aspects such as goals, need, demand, output, gaps and lacunas in remote sensing training, remote sensing education, adequacy of training courses/centres, quality future projections and available alternatives, etc. The approach as conceived is depicted in Fig. 1.

Figure 1 Perspective Approach in Remote Sensing Training
2.0 Important Issues in Remote Sensing Training

2.1 Improving Effectiveness of the Training Courses

2.1.1 Quality of Training Courses:
It is suggested that the course content must be updated regularly. Too long or too short term training courses are slowly loosing their glamour because of unbalanced duration. In authors view the ideal duration of the training courses would be between 3 months (maximum) and two weeks (minimum). Longer duration courses should be offered by the universities. The training centers should offer only Specialised courses. One/two week duration courses could be offered for decision makers/resources planners, etc.

Multidisciplinary approach should become an essential component of remote sensing training. Theme specific courses should have adequate component of remote sensing applications in other related fields. For example in agriculture course applications of remote sensing in soils, forestry, water resources, meteorology, geoloigy, landuse/landcover, etc., should also be included as a part of the course. This will make training more fruitful for the users (Chandrasekhar, Gupta and Ganesha Raj, 1992). Feed back from trainees about the usefulness of the course in their work is needed to improve the quality of training courses.

2.1.2 Publicity/Timely Information Dissemination:
Lack of publicity/lack of timely dissemination of information about training courses is one of the main reasons for poor response to many of the remote sensing training courses. Hence there is need for timely dissemination of information. This can be achieved by creating an up-to-date date base on remote sensing user community and mailing the information well in advance, so that the oreganisations could make suitable arrangements to sponsor the candidates for the training. As in case of most of the State/Central Governemtn Organisations formalities for nominating/sponsoring the candidates take a long time. It is, therefore, advisable to circulate information on training courses at least 2-3 months in advance (3 months being more ideal). Publishing and dissemination of yearly training calendars can be very effective for improving the response for the training courses. Advertisements about the training courses can be given in monthly/quarterly journals such as (Journal of Geological Society of India, Bhu-Jal News, NNRMS Bulletin, etc.) for wider publicity of the courses.

2.1.3 Analysis of Manpower Requirement/Output:
Periodic analysis of trained manpower requirement, output and gap is important for, deciding strategy to meet the gap in the manpower at a given time. Periodic analysis of parameters related to trained manpower availability/requirement and output from various training centres be therefore carried out at nation level by the concerned national remote sensing centres and actions be teen to meet the gap in trained manpower requirement.

2.1.4 Need for Regular Training Courses:
Training in remote sensing in the country is offered by many institutions. Some of these institutions are dedicated remote sensing training centres with regular training courses such as Indian Institute of Remote Sensing, Regional Remote Sensing Services Centres, Geological Survey of India-Training Institute, and National Remote Sensing Agency. There are other institutions which are primarily not the training institutions but offer training courses as and when convenient for them and work as part time training institutions. Most of the courses offered by such institutions have no fixed topics and yearly calendar. It is felt that training courses must be offered every year in a regular mode by the part time training centres also.

2.1.5 Training of Resource Planners:
As remoter sensing technology is very effective in the monitoring and management of natural resources/natural disasters. It is important that resource planners are aware of the potentials of remote sensing technology. Awareness/orientation courses be therefore organized exclusively for resource planers and decision makers as a target group. National remote sensing organisations must take lead in this field. Workshops at national/regional/state and district level be organized for this purpose at least once every year (Chandrasekhar, Gupta, Ganesha Raj, 1992).

2.1.6 Long Term Training vs. Shorter Duration Courses:
Data from training centres has indicated that demand for the long duration courses [more than 3 months] has gradually decreased during the past several years. The sponsoring agencies due to practical problems in deputing personnel for long duration do not show much interest to these courses. It is, therefore, suggested that instead of a single long duration course, such courses could be offered in a phase-wide manner. For example, a 10 months duration courses could be offered in three phases, says first phase as basic training course (of 3 months) second phase as semi advanced training with project work ( of 4 months duration). Under the suggested approach applications could be invited for the full course as well as for individual phases. However, for semi advanced and advanced phases the prerequisite could be the previous phase training or the equivalent.

2.1.7 Training on Advanced Emerging Areas:
It is felt that in India currently the emphasis in remote sensing training is towards operational utilization of remote sensing data in the VIS-NIR-SWIR regions. Authors feel that training institutions should also equip themselves for future needs of training as well, eg. Use of data from thermal and microwave sensors, not only the imagery interpretation but also handling other forms of data such as data from microwave altimeters, scatterometers, laser remote sensing, data from imaging spectrometers, etc., use of GPS systems for fixing ground control points in field and derivation of geophysical and environmental parameters from Earth Field Measurement sensors and environmental satellites planned / launched by other countries. Exclusive courses on science and applications of Geographical Information System. Digital Terrain Modelling/Digital Elevation Mode, Artificial Intelligence/Expert System etc., could also be offered.

2.1.8 Training for trainers :
Adequate importance be given by concerned organisation for training ( Manikiam and Krishnamurthy, 1992 ). If necessary training of these trainers in developed countries to get abrest with the latest developments in the field and handing and interpreting advanced forms of remote sensing data could also be considered. This is utmost important in view to make remote sensing training courses up-to-date and harness the capabilities offered by the space borne remote sensing systems.

2.2 Remote Sensing Education

2.2.1 Need for Introduction of Remote Sensing in Education :
Though remote sensing has been perationalised in many of the natural resource application areas and operationally used for monitoring and management of many of these resources, the formal education in remote sensing is limited to few subjects such as geology, geography, cartography etc/, at Post Graduate level in few selected universities. At school level and graduate levels largely at present remote sensing doe not find a place in the curriculum. In view of the increasing awareness about the remote sensing technology it is important that students must be aware about the technology and its potentials. It is therefore necessary that remote sensing technology must be introduced in the educational curriculum ( Rajwar, 1992). Formal education in remote sensing is also important in view of promotion of remote sensing among the personnel indirectly associated at various capacities with the utilization of remote sensing such as administrators, resource planners, etc. It is also felt that introduction of remote sensing in educational curriculum will be effective as a long term means to meet the trained manpower requirement in the field of remote sensing. This will gradually free the training institutions and they can concentrate more on newer/specialized concepts/courses than on the basis concepts of remote sensing technology as practiced currently.

2.2.2 Strategy:
In authors view remote sensing should be introduced at early stages in the education field, preferably from 8th class onwards. At this stage remote sensing can be integrated suitably in popular form and smaller doses with the existing syllabus in subjects like geography, biology, physics, mathematics, etc. Fundamentals of remote sensing could be taught in this class. Continuation of fundamentals and introduction to remote sensing application could form part of 9th and 10th classes. In Pre-Degree courses ( 11th and 12th ), further details on fundamentals and applications of remote sensing be dealt. At Graduate level remote sensing could form full chapters with sub-details or as a part paper with adequate lab exercises in subjects like Geology, Geography, Botany, Physics, Zoology, Civil Engineering, Math’s, Statistics, Computer Science, Agriculture, Soils, Forestry, Archaeology, Marine Fisheries, Marine Sciences, etc. At Post Graduate level one full paper on remote sensing applications can be taught as pert of above subjects with micro level details and associated project work. Advanced/specialized research need to be encouraged at Doctoral level.

2.2.3 Delinking Remote Sensing Education from Training:
In India, remote sensing has yet to find appropriate place in the educational curriculum at various levels. As a result, presently remote sensing education to candidates is offered as part of remote sensing training courses. This puts additional pressure on the training institutions. Reorientation of remote sensing training courses is important in view of introduction of remote sensing in educational curriculum. Once remote sensing is introduced in the educational curriculum the students coming out from the Universities will be aware about remote sensing and its application potentials. Hence in place of long term training courses, there will be increasing demand for the oriention courses of shorter duration suiting the job requirement. The courses will therefore have to be reoriented towards specific/narrow specialized fields such as oil exploration, crop acreage estimation, water resources mapping, urban and rural studies, geographic information system, digital terrain modeling and so on. Duration of these courses will also have to be modified suitably. The view is also supported by Gopalan et. al ( 1992)

2.2.4 Need of Special Courses for University Faculty/School Teachers:
There are about 131 universities in India ( including 26 agricultural universities ) wherein remote sensing can be introduced as a part o the subjects viz., agriculture, horticulture, forestry, fisheries, civil engineering, physics, botany, zoology, geography, geology, town and country planning , etc. There are about 1700 University departments wherein the above subjects are taught. To introduce remote sensing in all the universities there is a need to train at least one person per department. This calls for training of 1700 persons. At present the available trained manpower in the education field is around 300, thus, leaving a gap of 1400 persons, to fill this gap. To accomplish it in a span of 10 years there is a need to train 140 persons/year. Introduction of remote sensing in senior secondary level in schools with Central syllabus ( CBSE) alone need about 100 teachers to be trained every year. It is recommended that special remote sensing training be organized on a priority mode. Summer/winter schools with a duration of 6 weeks are planned to train the teaching faculty.

2.3 Analysis on Training Centres

2.3.1 Need for Region-wise Training Centres:
Indian Institute of Remote Sensing (IIRS), Dehradun, is the only dedicated remote sensing training centre in the country with regular training courses designed for a variety of personnel engaged in remote sensing activities. Initially the institute was set up under technical assistance from ITC Netherlands. However, The location of this training centre in extreme northern part of the country sometimes works as a repulsive factor for many who are located in far from this place in South, West, East or North Eastern regions of the country. In authors view region wise dedicated remote sensing training centres with regular course would be more useful in meeting the trained manpower requirement in respective regions. Regional Remote Sensing Training Centres (RRSTC) set up in the country to provide digital image processing facility in respective regions.

2.3.2 International Collaboration in field of Remote Sensing Training:
India is among a very few countries in South East Asia with extensive expertise infrastructure and programmes for utilisation of remote sensing data. It will be of great benefit if the expertise available with the country could be shared among the developing nations through well designed training courses. Even though a SHARE scheme is available in the country offer remote sensing training for candidates from developing nations under exchange programme. As very limited number of seats are available under this programme it is suggested that the scheme should be made more flexible for attracting larger number of candidates. It is also suggested that while doing so increase in financial liabilities could be met through international collaboration/assistance.

In fact India should work towards establishing of a major remote sensing training centre for imparting remote sensing training in South East Asian region/developing nations. International Organizations such as UNDP/World Bank and from other developed countries be approached for financial assistance on this matter. Provision for exchange of faculty in such an institute from other institutions, universities from developed/developing nations, etc., would be an added advantage. Such a training institution will be among the neighbouring countries as well as in transfer of remote sensing technology among other developing nations. Such an institution could also provide consultancy to neighbouring countries in monitoring/management of disasters such as floods, cyclones, drought, landslides, etc., and in management , conservation of natural resources/environment.

2.4 participation of remote sensing User Organiza-tions, State Remote Sensing Application Centres and Universities in remote sensing training

2.4.1 Training by Remote Sensing User Organizations:
Various DOS/ISRO Centres especially Indian Institute of Remote Sensing , National Remote Sensing Agency and Regional Remote Sensing Service Centres have been offerring regular training courses in remote sensing. Many of the remote sensing organizations by now have developed good strength of personnel trained in remote sensing applications. These include National Bureau of Soil Survey and Land Use Planning, All India Soil and Land Use Survey, Central Ground Water Board, Geological Survey of India, Survey of India, Forest Survey of India, Oil and Natural Gas Commission, Oil India Limited and so on. These organisations are making full use of remote sensing in survey of natural resources of concen to them. Some of these departments like Survey of India. Geological Survey of India, Central Ground Water Board, etc., also impart training to personnel from within the department as well as from other departments in remote sensing themes dealt by them.

Benefits of remote sensing technology in many other important fields such as water resources, agriculture, landuse surveys, integrated surveys, etc., need yet to be fully harvested. Large gap exist in trained manpower requirement and the output needed for operational utilisation of remote sensing in these disciplines. This gap in trained manpower can be met by initiating interdepartmental remote sensing training courses with the help of trained personnel available within the department. Authors are of the view that remote sensing user departments can play an important role by way of initiating remote sensing training courses in areas of expertise available with them for the personnel from within as well as from the other departments. This will make the raining courses more effective, interesting and useful. This will also lessen the burden on the existing training institutions and go a long way in speedy operationalisation of remote sensing in natural resources survey and management in the country.

2.4.2 Role of State Remote Sensing Centres:
Now almost all the states in India have State Remote Sensing Application Centres. These centres carry out remote sensing projects of interest to state government and participate in national level remote sensing projects pertaining to their State. It is envisaged that these centres can play vital role in remote sensing training at state level. It is felt that due to specific nature of job difficult for them to function as dedicated remote sensing training centre however a few ( at least 204) remote sensing training courses of shorter duration ( of two weeks orientation / awareness courses could be offerred every year in selected remote sensing themes/application . At least one remote sensing workshop by State Remote Sensing Centres for about 3-4 days for state level officers/scientists will e very effective in increasing awareness about remote sensing among administrators/policy makers/resource planners.

2.5 Other Issues

2.5.1 Retraining of Trained Personnel :
It may be realised that remote sensing training imparted once may not be adequate for very long duration and updating of persons trained once is necessary and updating of persons trained once is necessary in view of keeping them aware about recent advances in remote sensing. Advanced level refresher courses in specific themes must therefore be organized for this purpose. It is felt the persons trained in remote sensing applications need to be retrained at least onces in every 5 years.

2.5.2 Provision for Training of Persons Working in Private/Public Sector Agencies:
It is normally observed that most of the training courses offerred by national level Institutions/ Organisations are meant for training the personnel employed in Government/Semi Government and Educational institutions. Even those institutions allowing participation of candidates from private/other sectors lack adequate publicity of such courses among private remote sensing is now a days gaining lot of popularity among all including private organisations it is felt that provision in the Training Courses could be made for candidates from private/public sector companies and adequate publicity of courses be given among private/public sector users.

2.5.3 Themewise Analysis of Training Needs:
Discipline-wise requirement of trained manpower was worked out by National Natural Resources Management System (NNRMS) task Forces set up by the Planning Commission in 1984. The projections made by the Task Forces have been modified considering phenomenal growth of remote sensing in recent years (Chandrasekhar, et. al, 1992) to assess the gap between the present requirement and the output. The yearly requirement, output and gap in trained manpower is analyzed and listed in table below:

Sl. No.	Theme	Yearly Output	Yearly requirement	Gap
1.	Agriculture	20	90	70
2.	Forest	65	90	25
3.	Geology	60	75	15
4.	Marine Resources	15	70	55
5.	Soils	55	85	30
6.	Urban & Landuse	45	110	65
7.	Water Resources	45	100	55
8.	Digital Image Processing	120	130	10
	Total	425	750	325

It is clear from the above table that there is acute shortage of trained personnel in remote sensing in themes like agriculture, water resources, urban planning, landuse and marine resources, etc. Appropriate steps need to be taken to meet the shortage in trained manpower in the above disciplines.

3.0 Recommendations/Suggestions
(i) Need is felt to reorient and improve the quality of remote sensing training in India, (ii) Emphasis be given for introduction of remote sensing in educational curriculum at various level starting from 8th standard onwards, (iii) Training courses need to be restructured from a maximum duration of 3 months., (iv) More courses be planned in specialised remote sensing themes/advanced margining areas, (v) Refresher courses be organized for training of already trained personnel, (vi) Training courses be offered regularly by the training institutions, (vii) Wide and timely publicity be given for the proposed training courses, (viii) Training of resource planners by given adequate importance, (ix) Adequate emphasis be given to training of trainers in advanced remote sensing fields, (x) Multidisciplinary approach be followed in remote sensing training, (xi) Opportunities needs to be given for training of personnel from private remote sensing user agencies, (xii) Analysis of training requirement, thruput and gap in training be carried out periodically, (xiii ) Separate courses be organized on an urgent basis to train the faculty for introduction of remote sensing in the education, (xiv) Regional Remote Sensing Training Centres need to be set up in the country on the line of Regional Remote Sensing Service Centres, and (xv) To provide remote sensing training for candidates from developing countries/South East Asian Region a dedicated remote sensing training centre be set up in India with international collaboration.

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