As early as in 1984 University Grants Commission (UGC), New Delhi has launched Country Wide Class Room (CWCR) and production facilities at 6 universities in India through establishing media centres in the name of Audio Visual Research Centres (AVRCs) (AVRCS) (later these centres have been renamed as Educational Multimedia Research Centres (EMMRCS). This was mainly to use electronic media for the quality enrichment of higher education. UGC began its transmission of Country Wide Class Room (CWCR) programme from 15th August 1984 through Doordarshan National network. Initially the co-ordination with these centres was done from UGC office with the support of a consultant. Subsequently, an Inter-University Centre named as 'Consortium for Educational Communication' (CEC) was set up in the year 1993 to co-ordinate with media centres (AVRCs and EMMRCs) and to make CWCR mission most effective and successful. Vision of CWCR The vision of CWCR is to electronically reach to a large number of students, teachers and general public with quality educational material, so as to address the issues of accessibility to higher education with equity and quality through Educational Television programmes (ETV). The aim is to spread the knowledge and expertise of academicians working in various departments of the universities / colleges and institutes of higher education through National television network. Mission of CWCR CWCR programmes are produced by 22 media centres by the utilization of more than one medium like audio/video, graphics, animation for the educational dissemination and are telecast on Doordarshan's National channel (DD1) everyday in English and Hindi. These programmes could be used either to supplement curriculum or as an enrichment material on a plethora of subjects. CWCR programme will be completing 25 years on 14th August 2009. The CWCR programmes are telecasted on Vyas-24 hours higher education channel and for one and half hours on DD1, DD Bharathi pertaining to health line and culture and for 4 hours on Gyandarshan. These programmes have created their own niche audience on higher education in various parts of the country. Major Milestones of Country Wide Class Rooms 1984, August 15th, CWCR telecast began. 1985, February 16th, telecast started twice a day. 1988, February 19th, First Annual Video Competition. 1991, November, First National Talkback Experiment took place. 1994, February 2nd, Hindi Telecast commenced. 1994, December, Interactive Course on New Communication Technologies conducted. 1994, A series on 'Family' co-produced with participation of nine other countries in the International Year of the Family, with film Australia. 1996, February, first Newsletter of CWCR was published. 1996, April, Education International began to function. 1996, the ninth UGC-CEC Annual Video Competition became a national competition. 2000, January 26th, 'Gyandarshan', a dedicated educational channel started; CWCR shared time with IGNOU and NCERT. 2004, January 26th,' Vyas' (GD4) a dedicated 24 hours higher education channel started. 2004, August EMMRCs were given a new name that is Educational Multimedia Research Centre (EMMRC). 2005, September 5th, Interactive video lectures commenced. 2005, October 17th, EMMRC Ahmedabad got an opportunity to telecast for EDUSAT Higher Education Network, which is first interactive educational lecture from other than main Sub-hub.versity.