“Technology alone will not improve education, but it can be a powerful part of the solution” – Sundar Pichai
By – Kamal Baruah
A decade and a half ago, Bill Gates’ owns a mansion in Washington which is a technological masterpiece for its design that contains even like a rare manuscript of Leonardo Da Vinci with a high tech sensor system that indeed grabbed attention to the world. India is keen on developing a Digital India only in 2015 for every Indian to access internet without any hassles. Not long ago, prior to the data revolution from the Jio Effect, people were looking for free zone WiFi connectivity. I never wondered my compact 2BHK would soon fall a virtual home someday. The prolong lockdown made things goggling around.
Our home seemed to fall under school zone apart from household activities. While my 12th standard daughter goes on to communicate online coaching platforms such as Gmail, Google Classroom, Meets and Chat through G Suite endlessly, my better half is also facing hard days to manage classroom through Assignments, Google Forms by collaborating Docs, Slides, Sheets and Drive. Teachers / students are made to fall in with the line of virtual media for the entire day. And I am too confined at the living room with my Laptop enabling Wi-Fi around and keying some write ups. Interestingly our little one ‘Tikla’ a Kindergarten is also using digital devices that got addicted to every time the smartphone gets a notification sound from WhatsApp, where a class is taught virtually to toddlers. They choose YouTube channels to pick their ideal playmate. It really kept kids so entertained and learned without realizing.
We live in cybernetic world nowadays. Ed-tech is the latest buzzword in the education sector. But there are challenges from primary to secondary level to integrate online learning programmes because they are huge in volumes across the country to connect gradually. It would genuinely provide learners to transform lives and bridges the opportunity. Is India equipped to transition from traditional class-rooms to online learning?
Online learning seemed to have gained acceptance in urban areas despite issues like Internet penetration and bandwidth. Parents faced niggling challenges to provide online platforms to their wards. While on the other hand, Reliance Jio is preparing to welcome Made in India 5G solution, a large number of peoples still have no access to high-speed internet. On the other hand, the government aided educational institutions have not yet decided their future course of action to their curriculum.
The developed countries have started online practicing to their day to day lives but India face mayhem to go digital. Besides the availability of broadcasting channels Gyan Darshan, Diksha and Swayam Prabha TV, the Ministry of HRD has recently announced the launch of one class, one DTH channel plan for students of class 1st to 12th with the expertise agencies like the NCERT and the CBSE to develop content and broadcast absolutely free of charge. To explore the option for higher education, All India Radio platform is planned to broadcast academic content through the radio as well. But teachers are in loggerhead to overcome that tectonic shift in teaching online. It required broad directions to follow plan, review, arrange, guide-talk, assign, track and appreciate etc. that requires scientific training and digital know-how.
Fortunately Google & Alphabet CEO Sundar Pichai has come forward with a new $10B digitization fund to help accelerate India’s digital economy including education, consumer tech, health and agriculture. Google also announced a partnership with the Central Board of Secondary Education to train 1 million teachers across 22,000 schools by the end of 2020. Also it would enable to train seven lakh teachers in India to deliver virtual education through TV and radio, where smartphones are not available.
This would certainly help to transform India into a global knowledge superpower, with a focus on science and research. Paradoxically, other state boards’ teachers from elementary (5.8M) and secondary (2.1M) schools are not included and most of them are teaching in vernacular schools. There are over 240 million children enrolled in schools. The infrastructures of Primary and Secondary education under government run schools are pity. A large number of students from rural India do not have access to a television, smartphone, laptop or internet. Denying class room education for them after a fear of pandemic would further deteriorate sharply.
It could be fulfilled over projectors on real time or later in downloadable format? Should India make Internet a fundamental right after right to education? It’s a huge area for government to fulfil the demand as the online and blended learning models will continue in higher education. Oxford University online learning tools benefit students from WebLearn to iTunesU. As the world is moving towards digital education, IIT Madras has already launched an online BSc Degree course in Programming and Data Science. Other institutions should also adopt new thinking of virtual learning environment through Webinar.
To empower learning, teachers could play a key role to focus students with flexible, secure and easy-to-use tools. The tech giant Google made all tools for free and built for education to administer confidently. At the same time, excessive use of screen time activities could cause serious health effects for young minds. There are no easy solutions to overcome it. With technology imparted a great deal of knowledge to next generation with future skills, will this suited to improve education?
