National Policy on ICT in School Education

NATIONAL POLICY ON ICT IN EDUCATION

A Position Paper
Submitted by

M.Arivanandan
Research Scholar
Dept. of Humanities and Social Sciences
Indian institute of Madras
Chennai 600 036

Information and Communication Technology (ICT) is one of the rapid development technological fields in the global. Among the developing countries India reached a significant position in development of ICTs. Particularly in the field of education its development is tremendous. There is no doubt in the near future’s development will based on ICTs. However benefits of ICTs are not reached expected level in the rural areas still the rural population living with minimum level of ICTs facilities especially the poorest of the poor. Both central and state governments and NGOs are allocating huge amount for the development of ICTs and rural education. However the level of improvement in accessibility of ICTs in rural schools did not reached the expected level. This paper gives ideas to improve the rural education through ICTs, especially the computer related technologies. Also provide some suggestions for effective implementation of the national policy for ICT in education in rural areas.

Need based ICT Education in rural areas:

Due to various developmental activities in education department, rural schools have improving its infrastructure facilities. But the development is not uniformly in all rural areas; still many areas are neglected from even basic infrastructure facilities. Though, governments are providing ICT facilities to rural schools. Many of them are not working properly. The reasons such as, lack of accessibilities of the facilities by the beneficiaries, beyond the level knowledge of users and not full fill their needs or beyond their level of needs. Thus, whenever implement the ICTs related programmes in the rural areas, should be assess local conditions and priorities needs of rural students. The assessment of needs should be following the methods of dialogue, survey and discussion with beneficiaries in rural areas. First they have to understand the real benefits of the programme then only it will sustain in long term and perform effectively in rural areas.

Create awareness on ICT education:

Before provide knowledge through computer related technologies, should have to create knowledge on ICT education and its usage to the rural school students. Due to their lack of awareness in the field of ICTs, rural students are not paid interest in the computer based education, some of them initially paid their interest later they are not follow, this because majority of rural ICT related programme failure even in initial period. The making awareness and motivation are not only to the students also the instructors of the ICT programme in rural schools.

Infrastructure Facilities:

Infrastructure facilities are one of the important factors for the implementation of ICT programme in rural areas. Without proper infrastructure facilities like power, place of the centre, connectivity and computer related materials and human support the programme will not success. So before start the ICT education programme should make sure all these facilities.

Community Participation:

Involvement/ interest of rural students are one of the significant aspects of ICT education programme. The attitude and behaviour of rural students accessibilities in ICTs are deferent from urban students. The urban areas students might have some basic knowledge in the usage of computer and its usages through their method of education and living condition, were as the rural students may not know much awareness about the benefits of ICT to their educational improvement. So education and motivation of rural students about usages and benefits of ICT programme is an important aspect. Here, the role of teacher is vital. So first should provide clear knowledge to teachers working in rural schools on the ICTs.

Majority of rural students are thinking computer based education is like computer training in various levels like MS word C,C++ also one of instruments for playing games, need more English knowledge, difficult to access and getting information. So these kinds of the unnecessary taboo should remove from their mind with help of computer graduate, who are living in rural areas and understand rural student’s educational and life condition. Without knowledge about rural condition, working for development of rural education will not give sustainable success to rural ICT education programme.

The Vision of the ICT for Education: ICT for education should more concern about upliftment of rural community in this connection the Vision is: “Integrated Development for Education and Economic Empowerment for Rural Students”

The integration should be concentrate rural life condition as well as provide information about urban areas educational developments. The ICT for education programme not only provide computer education to rural students but also it should provide information on higher education, employment opportunities in various fields. In school education of Tamilnadu, for example there is separate syllabus for moral class or life education it has included some vocation training class like farming, vocational training of empraiding, tailoring and weaving etc. But most of the schools did not follow effectively these classes. So this ICT for education programme can provide these same training and awareness through computer based education technologies with effectively. Also the computer based education will disseminate information on new technological developments from local to global level. It will be a good approach to understand to the rural students about the social and technological development of world also they can easily understand to connect with their rural life condition. This kind of ICT related educational programme will provide employment opportunity to computer and other educated youths in rural as well as areas. Also it will help to rural school students to understand computer related training and wide knowledge about resent developments in world.

Objectives:

To provide employment related education through computer technologies for school students at the standard of 8th to 12th.

To integrate various government self employment training institute to work for the ICT education programme

To disseminate world wide current science and technological related information to rural students

To create awareness for effective utilization of local resources for development of economic condition.

Challenges of the ICT for Education (Rural areas)

Infrastructure facilities are in one of the major challenges in rural schools ICT programmes, especially in internet connectivity. But in initial period without internet connectivity also we can provide some training and information through computer with effectively in rural areas. Nowadays usage of CD (Compact Disk) is not major expensive and technical aspect. All the developmental programmes are ride in the CDs and also install in computers. After that based on the standard (classes) we could framed the syllabus in rural schools then to educate students.

The second objective of linkage the government training institutions for ICT programme. The same CD method can be followed to this programme. All the practical and theoretical works of the exports from the different fields has to collect in the CDs and display in schools through computers. Here the challenge is computer knowledge of the instructors who are working in the schools. So the selection of the instructors must have basic knowledge of various technologies related to development aspects.

Another major challenge is knowledge of the local resources and its utilisation. The knowledge on local resources can be acquired from elders of rural areas and related research institutions, historical events, books. But it should be arrange like a syllabus and provide as information to students. It should be in simple and understandable to all students.

Finally, the important aspect is involvement and interest of teachers, education department and the end user of the student community in rural areas. These two things can achieved through continuous motivation and provide better awareness about the importance of the ICT programmes. Also another major challenge is monitoring and evaluation of the over all programme. This has to be done by the concern school education department. The government can be appointing suitable persons to monitor the ICT programme in schools. But the person should have better knowledge on all over the programmes like computer skill, technical knowledge on various fields, and knowledge on local resources and its management.

Through this conclusion of the position paper would like to emphasise that in the national policy of ICT for education, the policy makers paid more attention in rural areas and its student education standard while implement ICT for education programme. It is a great opportunity to rural students to improve their educational, employment and knowledge on world technological developments.

rachita@csdms.in