Adequate Infrastructure in every school

Smt. D. Purandeswari, Minister of State for Human Resource Development has said that the challenge before us is to provide adequate infrastructure in every school irrespective of its location and backwardness, have every teacher trained in the enabling environment of ICT and make every school a hub for its community in exchanging information.  Smt. Purandeswari was speaking today at the World Seminar of Education Ministers at London, UK.  This is a world Ministerial Seminar on information and communication technologies in education organized by “Moving Young Minds” which has established itself,  the premier world ministerial seminar on the development and implementation of ICT and e-learning in education.  The MOS has also said that keeping in view of its critical role in ensuring education of good quality, Government of India plans to augment the allocation for the programme by about four times higher than the current year’s budget provision of about 62.50 million dollars for the next fiscal.  Here is the full text of the speech:

“India is a land of diversity. This diversity spans across culture, tradition, language, geography and the economic condition of the people. It is a nation that has a significant number of people who are below the minimal socio-economic benchmarks. This includes rural and urban poor, women in rural areas, street children, people belonging to historically disadvantaged castes and people living in less developed areas. The vulnerability of these sections of society has increased with globalization and this section is prone to become even more marginalized - economically and socially. Successive governments have committed themselves to addressing these divides, but effective implementation of various economic development programmes aimed at individuals belonging to these sections of society has proved an elusive goal. We however, are firmly committed to wipe out the wide discrepancy between the ‘haves and have nots’ a problem which we have bequeathed as a result of exploitation and depravation for centuries.

The traditional notion that land, labour, capital and entrepreneurship are the indispensable ingredients of the production process has outlived its relevance. In the context of growing importance of I.T, Bio-technology, Nano Technology etc. the component in the productive system, Education today is no longer considered a mere transfer of knowledge, but is recognized as the most important facilitator of social and economic development of any country. Combined with sound macroeconomic policies, education is fundamental for the construction of globally competitive economies and democratic societies. It augments cognitive and other skills and in the process leads to higher productivity and development. Education builds what the Noble Laureate Amartya Sen rightfully calls “human capabilities’ and it is one of the most powerful instruments known for reducing proverty and inequality and for laying the basis for sustained economic growth and sound governance.  Hence it is very important that when we talk of development, we should discuss it in the context of excellence on education. The 21^st Century is acknowledged by all as the “Knowledge Century” which means that Knowledge or brain power should be reflected in a country’s competitiveness, advancement and human capabilities Human capabilities are a function of the well-being of a people and the investment we make in human capital formation.  The ability of a nation to make best use of its knowledge or brain power will ultimately determine its place in the global development scenario in the present century.  Lifelong learning education should therefore be a high priority for all.

Education is perhaps the single largest factor that builds capacity for accumulation of knowledge, its understanding, application and dissemination in young minds. In the long term, it shapes the destiny of a nation.   

One visualizes in a typical classroom, students lined up in rows, paper and pencil in hand; a teacher at the blackboard jotting down important facts; students furiously copying all that is written and said, expecting to memorize the facts and spit them out on an exam. While much has been changed by the advances of Science and Technology, education and the ways that students learn and teachers teach   have remained largely unchanged.

Application of information technology has driven the present day world to the need of a whole new set of skills.  A relevant education is more important today than ever, because today’s networked world demands a workforce that understands how to use technology as a tool to increase productivity and creativity.  Furthermore, employers require workers to have the skills necessary to collaborate, work in teams, and share information across global networks, i.e., to analyze issues from a multi-disciplinary perspective.

The new skills demand that the schools must prepare students to meet the challenges of higher education or the workplace.  Part of this preparation must include competence in using productivity enhancing tools of technology and the need for  schools to prepare students to use such tools.  Teachers within the schools must incorporate technology into their teaching.

The role of the teachers has thus changed from knowledge transmitter to that of learning facilitator, knowledge guide, and co-learner with the students.  However the new role does not wane the importance of the teacher but involves new knowledge and skills which they ought acquire through information and communication technologies.  Students have greater responsibility for their own learning in this environment as they seek out, find, synthesize, and share their knowledge with others.  Technology could aid in creating an interactive and engaging learning environment for teachers and learners.

Technology in Education complements existing environment with avenues for enhanced effectiveness of teaching learning process engaging both the teachers and learners, two way communication between the learner and the external world, and integrate school with its community through meaningful utilization of Technology assets in timeslots identified.

The strategy for implementation of ‘Technology in Education’ has thus the following four components:

Ø                   ICT infrastructure

Ø                   Training of the teacher to use ICT for imparting education;

Ø                   Providing different learning resources, which include related educational tools, course curriculum and other learning material;

Ø                   Connectivity through internet/broadband.

Technologies in Education are not single technology but complex combinations of various medium.  These technologies may employ some combination of audio channels, video, computer code, date, graphics, or text.  These include broadcast radio and television; audio-and videotapes; interactive audio and video teleconferencing; various computer and Internet technologies like web-based learning and computer-based learning, and print technologies.  Different technologies have contributed to different facets of educational development and effective learning: expanding access, promoting efficiency, improving efficiency, improving the quality of learning, enhancing the quality of teaching and improving management system.

Use of ICT in school education in India

In India, it was Radio that was conceived as accessible technology in terms of cost and comprehension and has been in use since the early fifties as a supplement to the regular curriculum.  The educational programmes through dedicated radio channels are now being used by many States through interactive mode.

Television has been used for educational purposes right from its introduction in 1959.  The unique feature of the television in combining audio and visual technology was considered to be more effective than audio media.  Within the formal education programmes Secondary School television project (1961) Satellite Instructional Television Experiment (SITE) (1975) Indian National Satellite project (INSAT) (1982) IGNOU-Doordarshan Telecast (1991), and the Gyan Darshan (2000) an exclusive educational channel.  These programmes mainly cater to high-school and above audience.  The ‘EDUSAT’ or the Education Satellite was launched by Indian Space Research Organization (ISRO) on 20^th September 2004.  The main purpose of this is to make available education to all people mainly children from remote areas of the country that cannot go to schools or colleges.  The classes would be run by various State Education Boards, National Council for Educational Research & Training (NCERT), Central Board of Secondary Education (CBSE), and Universities etc. in a studio environment using power point presentations as well as the common black board.

Strategies adopted:    

The following strategies has been aimed for adoption to use technology effectively to improve quality of teaching and learning in the classroom:-

o               “Catch them young” as the motto to encourage IT learning early in school curriculum.  Utilize IT in education as a capability building tool for the population and encourage the development of the country as a knowledge economy;

o              Encourage both IT enabled learning and ICT training;

o              Utilise it to target both primary education and eradication of illiteracy;

o              Fast track school computerization programmes that provides IT infrastructure across all government schools in the country alongwith connectivity and local language software;

o              Mission Mode deployment and monitoring of the fast track computerization programme.

o              Create local language “train the trainer” programmes and involve private bodies, government bodies and NGOs in implementing these programmes.

o              Devise a technology education programme that encourages the creation of content and enable the sharing of the content between institutions of higher education for increasing the quality of higher education.

o              Provide Content and bandwidth to schools and other educational institutions.

Though several States in India have developed the application of Information and Communication Technologies through their own efforts and also through Public Private Partnerships, the same is not uniform across the country.  To overcome this digital divide, the Central Govt. has, in December, 2004, introduced a Centrally-sponsored Scheme called ICT in schools.  The scheme aims to cater to the students of secondary and higher secondary stage.  The main emphasis of the scheme is to provide assistance for the schools run by the State Governments with the following components:-

o              For development of infrastructure, computers and all essential peripherals.

o              Assistance for development of appropriate software based on the curriculum prescribed.

o              Assistance for teachers’ training so as to enhance their capability.

o              Assistance for internet connectivity.

o              Assistance for monitoring and evaluation.

In addition to above, there are State Institute of Education and Technology (SIET), which are also supported for development of appropriate contents.

Coverage:

Already over 25000 schools have been sanctioned with a provision for establishing computer laboratories at secondary stage. In addition, similar number of schools at higher primary stage (Grade VI-VIII) are already covered under computer aided learning programme. As ICT in school education is a quality enhancer, it will be our endeavour to cover all the remaining 75000 Govt. & Govt. aided secondary stage schools under the ICT programme by 2010. The programme is broadly based on learning of computer literacy and also to aid teachers to make classroom more effective and interesting through computer aided learning.  Besides, the scheme is also being implemented by Kendriya Vidyalaya Sangathan, and Navodaya Vidyalaya Samiti to develop some selected schools as “SMART schools”.

The Ministry of Telecommunication has also a Plan to provide Broadband Internet connectivity to these schools.

Though we have initiated in a modest way the usage of education technology programmes in schools, it will be gradually given more thrust for horizontal expansion and improvement of classroom difficulties through computer aided learning particularly on the hard spots in Science, Mathematics and English.  A survey conducted in Karnataka reveal that education technology has been catalyst to classroom retention and in improvement of knowledge under the Mahithi Sindhu Project.

Keeping in view of its critical role in ensuring education of good quality, my Ministry plans to augment the allocation for the programme by about four times higher than the current year’s budget provision of about 62.50 million dollars for the next fiscal.

The challenge before us is to provide adequate infrastructure in every school irrespective of its location and backwardness, have every teacher trained in the enabling environment of ICT and make every school a hub for its community in exchanging information. 

From land and water resources in the agricultural era and through mineral and oil resources in the industrial era, we have now to move to human resources in the information age or knowledge era in pursuit of excellence. We shall spare no efforts to employ ICT based technologies to unversalize education in India for well being of the people of our great country, that is India. Years ago Sir Winston Churchill once said “The empires of the future are going to be the empires of the mind” and we live in an age where human knowledge, particularly scientific and technological knowledge, is expanding at an unprecedented pace and in that sort of world, access to knowledge has become the most important determinant of the power and wealth of nations. India has to catch up. We cannot afford to miss the bus and in this great national adventure of enterprise, of creativity our ICT based education has to play a proactive role.”