An official of the general education department said on condition of anonymity, “It is true that the project had ensured good infrastructure in all schools. But, it lacks innovative ideas. They have failed to come up with any innovative new concepts,” he said.
Former IT@school director Anvar Sadath told DC that the project should not be approached simply as an IT education programme. “The Project should integrate diverse activities such as capacity building, content development, infrastructure deployment, satellite based education and e-governance initiatives in a holistic manner, to benefit students in the state better,” Sadath said.
IT@school director-in-charge Babu Sebastian told DC that a definite plan for diversification and extension of the project to vocational higher secondary and higher secondary education sectors is on the anvil. “However, it could not be implemented this year as the academic year has reached the midway mark,” Sebastian said.
Kerala School Teachers Association (KSTA) General Secretary M. Shajahan said that there was a serious need for the intervention of the government and society to ensure that the project does not limit itself into an academic project alone.
The plight of the project can be understood by the simple fact that computers, lap tops, projectors and printers which were to be distributed to students of various schools from 2008-09 remained unused. And those laptops distributed through the project malfunctioned within a year. The project was to cover 50lakh students and 2lakh teachers covering 12,000 schools in the state.
The new digital management programme mooted by the IT@school using the ‘digital super highway’ connecting schools in the state also failed to take off. At first, the project DPI office was to be converted into a 'paperless' office, sources said. The new programme would have increased the efficiency of communication between offices under the department.
However, the IT@school has been instrumental in some initiatives that have created a sort of revolution in school education including the management software, 'Sampoorna' in schools in the state. The new programme would expand the data-storing mechanism and data-sharing system of the institutions under the department. The component of the project included digital data filing system.
The IT@school project has also associated with BSNL to provide Internet broadband connectivity to all high schools in the state. Some of the major e-governance initiatives already implemented under the project include online transfer and posting of over two lakh teachers, the noon meal distribution computerisation, Youth festival software, Pre-metric scholarship online and Centralised Online Text Book Intend system.
For this reason the Central Advisory Board of Education (CABE) decided to adopt Kerala's Information Communication Technology (ICT)-enabled education as a base model for other boards in the country. The CABE has already held several discussions with the IT@school project.
The decision to empower existing teachers to handle ICT, instead of bringing outside IT experts to schools to handle Computer Science, use of Free and Open Source Software, the emphasis on academic perspective and cost effectiveness were viewed as major advantages of the ICT model initiated by the IT@school project.
Unlike other states which outsourced digital content, the IT@school project developed its own content through Collaborative Content Development practices.
Scheme to cover state colleges too
Taking inspiration from the commendable work done by the IT@School project of the State Government, Higher Education Council has appointed two committees to study the extension of the project to colleges.
Higher Education Council Vice Chairman T. P. Sreenivasan told Deccan Chronicle that one committee would prepare a data bank of existing infrastructure in colleges, while the second committee would access the additional facilities that were needed in colleges if the project was to be launched, Sreenivasan said.
The Indian Institute of Information Technology and Management-Kerala (IITM-K) would be in charge of the committees, sources said. Suggestions for the project were included in the agenda of the 2013 report prepared by the higher education council. Sreenivasan said that the formation of IT@college programme would minimize the 'digital divide' between the school and college education sectors.
Sreenivasan said the use of technology in classrooms has become an absolute necessity. "There should be at least one smart class room in every college," he said. The combination of information and communication technologies has created ICT, but disparities exist in access to, and use of ICT between the school education sector and the higher education sector.
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Autor(en)/Author(s): Sabloo Thomas
Quelle/Source: Deccan Chronicle, 28.10.2013
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