National Policy on ICT in School Education

National level consultation on
Building a policy for ICT in school education
Inter-Ministerial Meet
March 12, 2008
Hotel Claridges, Aurangzeb Road,
New Delhi
The second Inter-Ministerial National Consultation on drafting the National policy on ICT in school education was held on March 12, 2008 under the aegis of Ministry of HRD with the help of their strategic partner Global e-Schools and Communities Initiative (GeSCI). The objective of the consultation was to conduct a collaborative, consultative and participatory process in making of the National Policy by involving various Government departments along with other stakeholders including the educational institutions, private sector, experts, state representatives and civil society.
The agenda for the consultation consisted of:

Interactive session on Pre-Draft Poilicy Document on sections which could not be discussed in the First National Consultation held on February 13, 2008.
Summarising the feedback and planning a way ahead.

Attendees:

S C Khuntia: Joint Secretary, Dept. of School Edu.& Literacy, Ministry of HRD
N Ravi Shanker: Joint Secretary, Dept. of Info. & Tech., Ministry of Comm. & Info. Technology.
P K Mohanty: Deputy Educational Advisor, Dept. of School Edu. & Literacy, Ministry of HRD
Terry Culver: Deputy Director, Global e-Schools &Communities Initiative (GeSCI)
A N J Aradhya: DDG (AS), BSNL
Anil Jain: DDG (Broadband), BSNL
Sanjeev Verma: Joint DDG (BNT), BSNL
O N Singh: Commissioner, Navodaya Vidyalaya Samiti
A. N. Ramachandra: Dy. Commissioner, Navodaya Vidyalaya Samiti
C D Tamboli: Director, Education, National Association for Blind
G. Kumar Naik: Commissioner Public Instructions, Govt. of Karnataka
Gurumurthy: Consultant, Azim Premji Foundation.
M C Pant: Chairman, National Institute of Open Schoolingv Gautam Bose: DDG, National Informatics Centre
Gurumurthy: Director (Academics), Central Board of Secondary Education
Sunil Alag: Scientist 'P', Department of Information Technology, e-Learning Division
Utpal Mallik: Head- Department of Computer Education, National Council for Educational Research & Training
R S Sharma: Principal Secretary �IT, Govt. of Jharkhand
J S Jagga: DM-ICT, Punjab ICT Education Society
Vikram Desai: Group Head, SNDG, ISRO, Ahmedabad
K P Singh: Sr. Research Officer, Planning Commission
A K Vajpayee: Education Officer, Kendriya Vidyalaya Sangathan
Anvar Sadath: Executive Director, IT@Schools (Govt. of Kerala)
Babu Sebastian: Director, SIET, Kerala
Vinnie Mehta: Executive Director, Manufacturer's Association for Information Technology (MAIT)
Anshul Sonak: South Asia Education Manager, Intel
Sudha Seshadri: Head -Corporate Communication, IL & FS ETS
Arunagiri Kalidas: Public Sector Relationship Manager, Microsoft
R Sreedher: Director, CEMCA
L. Bala: President, NIIT
Pial Islam: PM, ReI GLF, World Economic Forum
Nagarjuna: Faculty, TIFR,
Naimur Rahman: Director, One World South Asia
H N S Rao: Academic -Head ICT, Educomp
Sourav Banerjee: Sr. Education Specialist, USAID
Puran Chand: Former Joint Director, NCERT Consultant, NIOS
A D Choudhury: Product Manager, NIIT
Sundeep Saxena: Divisional Sales Head Govt., NIIT
K S Muralidhar: CEO, 24X7 Guru.Com
Sunil P P: Industry Manager Education, Microsoft
Veenu Gupta: Secretary, Dept. of School Education, Rajasthan
Ashish Garg: Country Programme Director-India, Global e-Schools &Communities Initiative (GeSCI)
Ravi Gupta: Executive Director, Centre for Science Development and Media Studies (CSDMS)

The discussion was primarily based on Research and Innovation, School Information Management System, Monitoring and Evaluation, Public Private Partnership, Norms and Standards, Financing, ICT in Vocational Education, Open and Distance Education, ICT for Special Needs and Quality in School Education. There were 45 participants who attended the meet representing Inter-Ministerial departments along with educational, private, state and civil society sector. It was decided and consensually agreed at the second Inter-Ministerial meet that a series of regional consultations will be conducted after revising the draft policy document with the feedbacks/responses/suggestions/input received from the two national consultations.