[Kurukshetra December Summary] Technology Integration for Quality Education – Explained, pointwise

Introduction

Technology is the major driver of the 21st century, touching every aspect of human life. The effect of technology has increasingly blurred the distinctions between the physical, digital, and biological domains and it is rapidly affecting how people live, work, and communicate. With the advancement of digital technology, administrations and institutions all over the world have been fundamentally altered structurally and in terms of the relationship between governments and individuals. One of the most important lessons learnt from the epidemic is that the future is hybrid (a mix of digital and physical). In fact, the major goal of technology is to recognise and cultivate human potential while also promoting long-term human growth through digitalization. In this context, technology will become vital for imparting quality education in the coming future.

Importance of technology in Governance

The pandemic has amplified the importance of e-government and digital technologies as essential tools for communication and collaboration between policy makers, private sectors and societies across the globe. e-Governance has become the cornerstone for building effective, accountable, resilient and inclusive institutions at all levels, as called for in Sustainable Development Goal (SDG) 16, and for strengthening the implementation of Goal 17 (UN E-Government Survey, 2022).

With such revolutionary impact of technology, education sector could not be left untouched and during the COVID-19 pandemic, the pace of integration of technology in teaching learning processes has increased exponentially. During the pandemic, digital technology played an indispensable role in holding the civil society together by supporting the provision of basic-fundamental services in the field of health, education, and service.

National Education Policy (NEP) 2020 gives utmost importance to technology and states that “The thrust of technological interventions will be for the purposes of improving teaching-learning and evaluation processes, supporting teacher professional development, enhancing educational access, and streamlining educational planning, management, and administration etc.“. It also recognises and addresses the issue of digital divide and elucidates that “The benefits of online/digital education cannot be leveraged unless the digital divide is eliminated through concreted efforts, such as the Digital India campaign and the availability of affordable computing devices. It is important that the use of technology for online and digital education adequately addresses concerns of equity.”

Use of Technology in Education

In the school education sector of India, technology has been used both in governance processes to improve the efficiency and effectiveness of schooling system and also for enhancing quality of education. Various governance related technological interventions have been initiated and undertaken by the Government:

UDISE+: Timely and accurate data form basis of effective policy and decision-making. Ministry of Education (MoE) had initiated Unified District Information System for Education (UDISE) in 2012-13 integrating DISE for elementary and secondary education which is one of the largest management information system for school education covering more than 5 million schools , 9.6 million teachers and 264 million  children.

UDISE+ is an updated and improved version of USIDE. This is now online and has been collecting data in real-time since 2018-19. UDISE+ provides robust, real-time, and credible information for an objective evaluation of the system, which can be used for designing evidence based specific interventions for improvement in the school education sector. Further, UDISE+ has a mandate of collecting information from all recognised and unrecognised schools which are imparting formal education from Pre-primary to Class XII.

UDISE+, collects information through an online Data Collection Form (DCF) on parameters ranging from students, schools, teachers, infrastructure, enrolments, examination results etc. Ever since its introduction, UDISE+ has acquired the status of the official database of the MoE and is now operational in all the districts of the country.

Performance Grading Index (PGI): It is a tool to provide insights on the status of school education and to catalyse transformational change in the States/UTs on the basis of key indicators that drive their performance and critical areas for improvement. It grades all States/UTs on their performance across 77 indicators on school education and helps identify gaps thereby enabling all States/UTs to design appropriate interventions to bridge them. This was introduced from 2018-19/

The purpose of this PGI therefore is to help the States/UTs to pinpoint the gap and accordingly prioritise area for intervention to ensure that the school education system is robust at every

Online Survey Platform for National Curriculum Framework (NCF): With the arrival of NEP 2020, the focus of education has moved towards learning about how to think critically, solve problems, how to be creative and multidisciplinary, how to innovate, adapt, and absorb new material in changing fields. Pedagogy is expected to evolve to make education more experiential, holistic, integrated, inquiry-driven, discovery-oriented, learner-centred, flexible, and enjoyable. To make the above expectations a reality, a new CF is being developed by the NCERT. The development of this framework is unique as it is adopting a ‘bottom-up‘ approach in which suggestions are invited from all stakeholders on the basis of which new NCF will be developed.

In addition, drawing insights from citizen-centric process of development of NEP 2020, this framework has also been made consultative. To ensure participation of each and every citizen of the country in this curriculum development process, a citizen-centric Digital Survey for National Curriculum – DiSanc has been launched. Under this survey, suggestions and feedback has been collected from the public at large for the formulation of the NCFs.

NDEAR (National Digital Education Architecture): NDEAR has been launched with a larger vision to create a unifying national digital infrastructure to energise and catalyse the education ecosystem. The core idea of NEAR is to facilitate achieving the goals laid down by NEP 2020, through a digital infrastructure for innovations in the education ecosystem, ensuring autonomy and participation of all the relevant stakeholders. NDEAR will enable a common set of principles and approaches to be followed in building, using, and re-using technology for education.

Vidya Samiksha Kendra: Vidya Samiksha Kendra (VSK) has been set-up at national level at NCERT and is aimed at leveraging data and technology to bring a big leap in learning outcomes. VSK will include Student, Teacher and School registry which will bring synergy to the work being done in the ecosystem by integrating data from different datasets and empowers students, teachers, and parents to bridge the gap. This will cover the entire data of school eco-system and will analyse by using big data analysis, artificial intelligence and machine learning in order to enhance the overall monitoring of the education system and thereby improving learning outcomes. All States and UTs have been provided financial support under Samagra Shiksha Scheme for setting up VSKs.

PRABANDH: Department of School Education and Literacy had launched PRABANDH (Project Appraisal, Budgeting Achievements and Data Handling System) in 2020. This System has been developed under Samagra Shiksha as a significant step towards leveraging technology to enhance efficiency and manage the implementation of the Centrally Sponsored Integrated Scheme for School Education. It has more than 10 lakh activated users and can be accessed from the School, Block, District and State Level.

A data visualisation dashboard has been created in the PRABANDH System for display of monthly status of physical and financial progress under the major interventions of Samagra Shiksha such as text books, uniforms, transport allowance, status of civil works, teaching learning materials etc. Technology integration has also been an integral part of enhancing quality of education.

Enhancing Quality of Education

Technology integration has also been an integral part of enhancing quality of education. Various initiatives have been undertaken to tackle this challenging situation:

PM e-Vidya: PM e-vidya ensures coherent access to digital education through multimodal approach. The digital platform of MoE ‘DIKSHA’ has been declared as ‘One Nation, One Digital Platform‘. DIKSHA can be accessed by learners and teachers across the country and currently supports 30 Indian languages.

Each State/ UT leverages this platform in its own way and has the freedom to use the various capabilities of the platform to design and run programs for teachers and learners. DIKSHA policies and tools make possible for the education ecosystem (educationist, experts, organisations, institutions – government, autonomous institutions, non-government and private organisations) to participate, contribute and leverage a common platform to achieve learning goals at scale for the

For digital content to aid in the teaching and learning processes, a rich repository of varied resources was contributed by Schools/individual teachers, content partners, NGOs, corporates through CSR under VidyaDaan.

For Children with Special Needs, 2970 Indian Sign language (ISL) based content, Mukta Vidya Vani, an audio streaming podcast and Radio Vahini, with 24×7 broadcast and talking books (in Daisy format) for learners with Blindness and Low Vision have been prepared. A total of 3424 Audio Books have been 10,000 ISL dictionary words, have been uploaded on DIKSHA.

At present, 12 PM eVIDYA DTH TV channels (One Class, One Channel from classes | to XIl), are functioning that delivers class-wise contents on 24×7 basis are linked to DIKSHA through QR codes. A Podcast called Shiksha Vani of the CBSE is also being effectively used by learners of grades 9 to

Capacity Building of Teachers through NISHTHA online: National initiative for School Heads and Teachers Holistic Advancement (NISHTHA), an integrated training programme was initiated covering all the recommended areas and aims at holistic development of teachers.

Under NISHTHA 1.0, about 24 lakh school teachers and head teachers at elementary education level (Classes 1-8) across 34 States/UTs had completed training and were certified.

Subsequently, NISHTHA 2.0 for Secondary teachers, NISHTHA 3.0 for Foundational Stage teachers, and NISHTHA 4.0 for training of master trainers have been launched for building capacities of teachers at all levels.

Ensuring Learning for All

Realizing the necessity for digital education during COVID-19, the government resolved to focus on digital learning in 2022–23 to reverse the academic disruption produced by COVID. The following measures were announced in Budget 2022-23 to increase digital technology and ensure learning for all :

200 TV Channels: Due to learning gaps caused by the pandemic-induced closure of schools, there is a need to impart supplementary teaching and to build a resilient mechanism for education delivery. For this purpose, the ‘one class- one TV channel‘ program of PM e-VIDYA will be expanded from 12 to 200 TV channels. This will enable all states to provide supplementary education in regional languages for classes 1-12.

Virtual Labs: NEP 2020 recommends creating virtual laboratories so that all students have equal access to quality practical, critical thinking and hands-on experience for teaching-learning of Science, Mathematics and Vocational Skills. To support this around 750 virtual labs in science and mathematics, and 75 skilling -labs for the simulated learning environment, will be set up in 2022-23.

High Quality e-Content: High-Quality e-content in all spoken languages will be developed for delivery via internet, mobile phones, TV, and radio through Digital Teachers.

Competitive Mechanism For e-Content: A competitive mechanism for the development of quality e-content by the teachers will be set up to empower and equip them with digital tools of teaching and facilitate better learning outcomes.

Conclusion

The NEP 2020 calls for investment in digital infrastructure, online teaching platforms and tools, learning etc. It is focused on the promotion of multilingualism and the power of language in teaching and learning through innovative and experiential methods. These methods include gamification and apps, weaving in the cultural aspects of the languages – such as films, theatre, storytelling, poetry, and music- and by drawing connections with various relevant subjects and with real-life experiences.

Technology will be integral in developing lifelong learners who have a growth mind-set, innate curiosity, drive to explore and firm belief in ongoing, voluntary, and self-motivated pursuit of knowledge. An inclusive, equitable, affordable and integrated digital ecosystem is needed to facilitate and sustain lifelong learning and to reap the benefits of inclusive technology development so that no one is left behind.

Source: Kurukshetra December 2022