MACRO ECONOMIC POLICIES FOR EDUCATION IN DIGITAL

ERA IN INDIA- DIRE NEED TO REFORM THE EDUCATION

REFORMS

Ms Amita MarwhaFaculty Department of Economics

Isabella Thoburn Collegefacultyeco.itcollege@gmail.com

Introduction

The Digital technology revolutionizes many of the ways we receive and use information

every day. The availability of online resources has changed everything from hunting for a new

house to reading the newspaper to purchasing plane tickets, and as a result has disrupted

established structures (such as the real estate, news, and airline businesses). Telecommuting has

become widespread. The market for popular music has transformed dramatically. Internet

telephony presents a real challenge to established telecommunications companies. Millions of

blogs, social networking sites, and interactive online games have created new modes for

interaction and expression. In short, the advent of digital technology touches almost every aspect

of modern life.

This development has brought both good news and bad news to the fore First, the good news: in

the years ahead, the declining cost of computation will make digital technologies

accessible to nearly everyone in all parts of the world, from inner-city neighborhoods in India

to the rural villages. These new technologies have the potential to fundamentally transform how

and what people learn throughout their lives.

Now, the bad news: When people think about education and learning, they often think about

information. They ask questions like: What information is most important for people to know?

What are the best ways to transmit that information from one person (a teacher) to another (a

learner)? What are the best ways to represent and display infor-mation so that it is both

understandable and learnable?

Now the question is our education system is based to achieve full development of

learners?

Do we really know and seceded in propagating the full potential of digital

revolution?

Reforming Educational Reform

Increasingly, nations are recognizing that improving education is the best way to increase

wealth, enhance health, and main-tain peace. But there is little consensus on how to

achieve an educated population, or even on what it means to have an educated population.

Can progress towards an educated population be measured by counting the number of

people in school? By the number of years they spend in school? By assessing their grades

on standardized tests?

We need to reform educational reform.

1. Rethink how people learn.

2. Rethink what people learn.

3. Rethink where and when people learn.

Indian Education Profile

“If one were to identify the single most important achievement in the field of education by the government in the

post-Independence era, it would have to be putting a school within reach of almost every child….Of course,

a school within reach is not the end - it is only the beginning…”(InfoChange Education Website)

In 1976, education was brought under the concurrent purview of both the Central and State

governments. While the Centre provides general direction on educational policy and curriculum,

the individual state governments manage the vast network of schools. State governments either

directly run schools, or support privately-run schools through grants. Thereare a small number of

private schools in each state that are completely independent of government funding (Infochange

Education Website).

Education in India: A Snapshot

•1986 -1992: Free and Compulsory Education

Pursuant to the National Policy on Education (1986) and revised Plan of Action (1992), a

majority of States and Union Territories have introduced free education in Classes I-XIIof their

schools. (Government of India, Ministry of Human Resource Development, Departmentof Higher Education

Website (b)).

•1979: Improving Outreach: Non-Formal Education

In 1979, the Government of India launched a program of

Non-Formal Education

(NFE) for children of 6-14 years age group, who cannot join regular schools. These children

include school drop-outs, working children, and children from areas without easy access to

schools. Initially implemented in ten educationally backward states, the scheme was extended in

1987 and is now operational in 25 states/Union Territories.100% assistance is given to voluntary

organizations for running NFE centers. (ILO Website)

•2001: The Mid-Day Meal Scheme: Boosting Enrolment, Attendance, and Retention

  In a landmark decision on November 28, 2001 the Supreme Court of India made it obligatory

for the government to provide cooked meals to all children in all government and government

assisted primary schools. Though resisted vigorously by State governments initially, the

; Midday Meal scheme) programme became almost universal by 2005, making this the largest

school feeding programme in the world, reaching 120 million primary school children.

(Government of India, Ministry of Human Resource Development, Department of Higher Education Website (b)

1949 onwards: Caste Based Reservation in Educational Institutions

Though caste based reservations were introduced in 1949, in 1990, a further 27% of seats in

institutions of higher education were reserved for Other Backward Classes(OBCs), over and

above the existing 22.5%  reservation for Scheduled Castes (SCs) and Scheduled Tribes (STs).

(Wikipedia, Reservation in India)

ICT in Education: Policy and Initiatives

It is against this backdrop that we need to view the role of information and communication

technologies (ICT) in education in India. For the purposes of this discussion, ICT in education

can be:

•Alternative instructional delivery systems such as radio, educational TV, and audio-visual

communication

•Computers and computer-based systems for instructional delivery and management,such as CAI

(Computer Assisted Instruction), use of multi-media and Internet/web based education (Rai &

Bhattacharya)Since the 1950s, policy has consistently favoured the use of ICT in education

(Reddi & Sinha(2004):“From the use of radio to spearhead the green revolution, to satellite-based,

one-way and interactive television for rural development in some of the most backward districts, to

today’sthrust for the use of open and distance learning models to serve the larger populations,

India hastried it all, with varying degrees of success… Radio has a penetration of 100 per cent in

thecountry while satellite and terrestrial television cover nearly 80 per cent of the country”

Gyan Darshan was launched in January, 2000, with three completely digital and round-the-

clockTV channels dedicated to education. In November 2001, an FM radio channel, Gyan Vani

was launched through different FM stations in the country. (GOI Ministry of HRD Press

Release,October 21, 2003).

Major Policy Statements and Initiatives

In the late 1990s, deregulation of the telecommunication industry began a dramatic improvement

in access to basic telephony and Internet services for the general population. Key government

initiatives are discussed below:

2000: NCERT release of National Curriculum Framework for School Education

Providing access to global information sources was made a priority goal under the National

Curriculum Framework for School Education released in 2000 by the National Council for

Educational Research and Training (NCERT). (UNESCO Website (a); NCERT Website

(a))Other stated goals included:

•the formulation of plans for the integration of computers into the curriculum,

•the creation of a framework for enhancing learning opportunities using ICTs across

thecurriculumIt was also recognized that the success of the implementation of ICTs depends on

the provisionof professional development opportunities for teachers.Each state's implementation

of these guiding principles differs and levels of investment,connectivity and curriculum

provisions for ICT integration vary greatly. A report of the status ofinitiatives in the various

states is available at the GOI, Ministry of HRD Department of HigherEducation Website

(d).Towards these stated goals, in 2006, NCERT released PDF copies of all its textbooks from

class Ito class XII on its website (Sivaraman, July 13, 2006, NCERT Website (b)).

“…this may be the first time any such repository of textbooks has been available publicly on

theinternet.”

2004: Edusat

  Launched in September 2004 at a cost of USD 20 million, Edusat is India’s first

dedicatededucation satellite.

“India will require 10,000 new schools each year and meeting the teaching needs on such a scale

[byconventional methods] will be impossible…” Madhavan Nair, chairman of ISRO, quoted in NewScientist,

(Tata, September 20, 2004)

With footprints covering the entire country, Edusat makes it possible for receive Direct toHome

quality broadcasts of educational programs using any television set and a low-costreceiver. The

result of a collaboration between the Indian Space Research Organization(ISRO)and, the Union

Ministry of Human Resource Development, state departments ofeducation and the Indira Gandhi

National Open University. This infrastructure is available to allsectors of education, but

primarily to publicly funded and implementing agencies that will beresponsible for transmission

and programming for their defined audiences (Iype, July 28, 2005).

2002: Vidya Vahini

In 2002, the Indian government launched a project called Vidya Vahini to provide for IT and IT-

enabled education in 60,000 schools in India over three years (India has about 1.1

millionschools), as part of a Rs 6,000 crore (USD 1.2 billion) project. Beginning with a pilot

covering150 schools the government proposes to equip each school with a computer lab

equipped withInternet, Intranet and television to facilitate video-conferencing, Web-broadcasting

and e-learning. (Kumar, A., October 9, 2002)

2006: Broadband connectivity in all secondary schools

On May 20, 2006, The Government of India, Ministry of HRD, Department of

Secondary and H ighe r Educa t i on i s sued an o rde r f o r t he Cons t i t u t i on o f an

In t eg ra t i on Ac t i on P l an t o implement Broadband connectivity in all secondary schools.

(Order dated May 20, 2006, GOI, HRD, Dept. of Secondary and Higher Education Website (e))

2007: Digital Library and Information Network

Based on recommendations made by different state open universities and distance education

institutions (DEIs), the Indira Gandhi National Open University's (IGNOU) board of

management has approved the National Open and Distance Learners Library and Information

Network (NODLINET) initiative. The expert committee set up by the ministry for human

resource development (MHRD) has endorsed the initiative, which will now be implemented in a

phased manner within a period of five years. (Times News Network, April 22, 2007)

UNESCO: Gesci

At the international level, the United Nations has generated the “Global school and Communities

Initiative” (Gesci), a special campaign to promote the use of technology in education (UNESCO

Website (d)). From their Bangalore base, Gesci will work with the Indian ministries of

Information Technology and Education facilitating policy support, technical assistance and

global resources for the initiative.

2002: Technology Tools for Teaching & Training in India (Project T4)

In September 2002, the T4 project was launched in Karnataka, Chhattisgarh and Jharkhand,

and subsequently, in the state of Madhya Pradesh. The program offers interactive radio

instruction (IRI) and educational television for mathematics, science and English as a second

language and is designed to reach some of the hardest to reach populations. Funded by

USAID,with collaboration of state governments and local organizations, the IRI programmes in

Kannada are broadcast to nearly 165,000 schools (Project T4 Website and related articles).Video

films in the local language are telecast by the state government via EDUSAT, covering about

885 schools.

2004: Bridges to the Future Initiative

This is a partnership between the International Literacy Institute (ILI) at the University of

Pennsylvania (USA), Byrraju Foundation, IIIT, and other agencies in the state of Andhra

Pradesh. The program aimed at providing literacy programs in the local language to out-of-

school youth and primary school students, using computer infrastructure in schools after hours.

Results of a two-year long impact study show dramatic results in putting drop-out youth back

into school, and raising learning achievement of in-school children aged 8-10 years in poor rural

settings(Wagner, Sridharan & Daswani, January 9, 2007).

2005: Indo-US Collaboration

 

Indo-U.S. Interuniversity Network for Higher Education and Research

was launched in 2005,a collaboration between over 20 American universities and Amrita

University, The Indian Space Research Organization (ISRO) and the Department of Science and

Technology (DST) to enhance higher education and research in India through the Edusat e-

learning network. The Indo-US collaboration will use Edusat to deliver classes taught by US

faculty to hundreds of colleges and universities throughout India, focusing on areas such as

engineering and computer science, information and communication technologies, materials

science, biotechnology and bioinformatics, nanotechnology, medical sciences and management

sciences. It also aims to create and make available to Indian learners, a digital library of teaching

materials and assets of participating faculty and researchers.

Mission 2007: Every Village a Knowledge Centre

Mission 2007 seeks to establish 600,000 Village Resource Centers by August 15, 2007,

coinciding with India’s celebration of 60 years of independence. (Swaminathan, M.S., November

25, 2006). Establishing connectivity and covering the ‘last mile’ are imperative to this ambitious

plan. To that end, Bharat Sanchar Nigam Limited (BSNL) is planning to connect 80,000 villages

of India through wireless broadband.

In another venture, San Diego based QUALCOMM Incorporated has allied with the Nasscom

Foundation to provide CDMA2000-based wireless Internet connectivity solutions to 65 Village

Resource Centres under Nasscom’s Rural Knowledge Network Program. (US-India Summit

Blog June 16, 2006)

Other Public-Private Partnerships for ICT in Education

The re i s a p l e tho ra o f Pub l i c - P r i va t e Pa r t ne r sh ip s (PPP) and In i t i a t i ve s

i n wh ich s t a t e gove rnmen t s have pa r t ne r ed w i th l a rge p r i va t e s ec to r

o rgan i za t i ons and mu l t i na t i ona l corporations to help bring computer enabled

education to the masses. Some of these PPPinclude:

•HEADSTART in Madhya Pradesh (2003) with provider of Linux technologies, Red

HatIndia. (Sharma, November 19, 2002; Government of MP Website)

•Project Shiksha (2004) with Microsoft in West Bengal, Karnataka, Andaman and Nicobar

Islands, Lakshwadeep, and Tamil Nadu. (Microsoft India Website)

•The Intel Teach Program (February 2000) to train classroom teachers in over 35 cities

nationwide to use technology to improve teaching and learning. (IntelTeach Website)

•Shiksha India (December 2001), a non-profit organization set up by the Confederation of Indian

Industry (CII), has created a teachers’ portal using open source tools and technologies. (Shiksha

India Website)

Some initiatives toward the use of ICT in non-formal education include:

•Computer Based Functional Literacy Program (2004) with Tata Consultancy Services inin

Andhra Pradesh, Tamil Nadu, Madhya Pradesh, Maharashtra, Uttar Pradesh and WestBengal (Tata Literacy

Programme Website).

•Hole-In-The-Wall Training Systems (2002 – 2003) developed by NIIT, for which theInternational Finance

Corporation, a World Bank subsidiary invested $1.6 million forcomputer kiosks in more than 60

locations to enable underprivileged children in Indiato learn from a web-based curriculum

(UNESCO Website (b)).

•India IT Freedom Project (2002) was launched in Andhra Pradesh in partnership with Freedom

Scientific Inc., USA. The project seeks to make ICT accessible to visually challenged learners by

the use of screen reading software. (The Hindu, August 6, 2002,and UNESCO Website)The

UNESCO Website provides details of various other programs for ICT use in the non-formal

sector; however, current status details are not available.

ICT for Special Needs

There are some Government as well as private initiatives (Agarwal, 2003) exploring the use of

ICT for persons with disabilities (PWD), for example, IIT Chennai has developed a local

language editor with speech recognition capabilities available in 15 Indian languages

along with English.

•IIIT Hyderabad recently developed a software to read web pages written in Hindi or Telugu.

•The National Association for the Blind, Delhi is developing a library of electronic educational

material for PWDs. Some 1500 titles will be stored using a format accessible with a screen

reader or for direct embossing of the text in Braille.

Reality Check

As stated by Keniston (2002a), “You cannot Believe a lot of what you are told” .There is many

initiatives and many goals. Though not lacking in ambition, to what extent they have been

implemented beyond pilot phases and sustained remains to be seen.

•There is little information available about actual implementation, evaluation, support and

maintenance of the various public – private sector partnerships. “As soon as these high-profile

projects end… the computers disappear and villagers lose the benefits.”(McGivering, May 25,

2003)

Conclusion- In the 1990s, people began to talk about the “Knowledge Society.” They began

to realize that information itself would not bring about important change. Rather, the key

was how people transformed information into knowledge and managed that knowledge.In

order to educate students to be a lifelong learners and successful contributor to the new

global market, educator must integrate technology and use it as a tool to transform

information into knowledge.

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