Integrated execution: Key to digitalising education

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Integrated execution: Key to digitalising education

Saturday, 07 January 2017 | Madhulika Sharma

Integrated execution: Key to digitalising education

To see the challenge holistically, because India has a large-scale higher learning, mass implementation of digital economy in the education sector will go a long way in the country’s overall transformation from a cash-dependent to a less-cash economy. Nevertheless, adapting to the less-cash drive will be an uphill task since India still lacks a unified educational environment due to economic and regional disparities. In order to implement the campaign uniformly across the nation, India needs an integrated and accessible execution of this initiative

In order to promote the Government of India’s drive for a less-cash economy, the Ministry of Human Resource Development has introduced Vittiya Saksharta Abhiyan (VISAKA) to promote digital economy across institutions of higher educational learning. VISAKA is aimed at training and engaging students and the youth in higher-learning institutions to go digital. The drive is to promote a less-cash economic environment on a digital mode through e-transaction of funds. A month-long programme, VISAKA, which began on December 12, 2016, will run till January 12, 2017 across the country through youth volunteers in institutions of higher learning.

In a similar initiative, echoing the spirit of digital economy, the Central Board of Secondary Education (CBSE) has recently directed all its affiliated schools to adopt a no-cash mode of fee collection.

These initiatives have brought the entire spectrum of the educational system to the centre of debates, highlighting the significance the education sector holds for digital economy and demonetisation.

India’s geographic disparities and diversities are a challenge in themselves. Thus, it needs to be seen whether the drive for digitalisation is implemented sectorally or becomes a part of the broader reform that the educational institutions and establishments in India require generally.

 

Administering Digitalisation

For the programme to be effective, rural/urban, organised/non-organised, public/private, formal/informal, technical and vocational training institutes need to be brought under an integrated pan-network. To see the challenge holistically, because India has a large-scale higher learning, mass implementation of digital economy in the education sector will go a long way in the country’s overall transformation from a cash-dependent to a less-cash economy. Nevertheless, adapting to the less-cash drive will be an uphill task since India lacks a unified educational environment due to economic and regional disparities.

A lot would depend on how these initiatives are implemented and executed at the national level, when the country’s education system itself is still not a unified entity.

In order to implement the campaign uniformly across the nation, India needs an integrated and accessible execution of this initiative.

Currently, as per the University Grants Commission (UGC), there are 356 State universities, 122 deemed universities, 47 Central universities and 252 private universities in the country. To successfully execute the idea of digital education, these universities need to step forward and act beyond the regional role and demonstrate an important “national character”.

The State universities and other regional institutions of higher education have to participate in this national drive of less-cash campuses by making arrangements for simultaneously training students, teachers, administrators and other staff.

India also has a large system of school education comprising 14,49,078 schools — 3,34,468 private schools; 10,76,994 public/ Government schools; 24,852 unrecognised schools; and 12,764 recognised and unrecognised madrasas. To make the entire school education system less-cash would require targeted planning, depending on the nature of the school.

This will also bring diverse outcomes and streamline the system beyond economic implications. For instance, though Government schools provide free education, the less-cash initiative should be implemented in distributing scholarships and incentives under different schemes directly to students, which implies opening bank accounts for all students.

Also, school administrative processes such as grants, funds, donations, midday meal and other transactions should be made less-cash. This will also save wastage of teaching hours for maintaining records.

Unlike Government schools, private schools charge fees. Digitalisation would not only simplify their transactions but also bring about transparency, particularly in exposing the arbitrary and exponential fee hikes in private schools, which of late have been making news. Under the Right to Education (RTE) Act, 2009, it is mandatory for private unaided schools to admit children from disadvantaged groups equivalent to at least 25 per cent of the strength in entry class. The Government reimburses the expenditure on these children. A digitalised system will help the stakeholders concerned have real-time information regarding the status of implementation of this important mandate.

Another issue that plagues school education is unavailability of reliable data, with different data sources citing different numbers for children attending school. Digitalisation of economic transactions in the school system can be a useful tool in determining the number of children in school and those who drop out.

 

Integrative Execution

The school education and higher education systems have certain common elements that need to be focused on while implementing the less-cash campus drive. For various reasons, students migrate between institutions, both intra-State and inter-State. In the case of such migration, ensuring continuity of education with minimum wastage of time and other resources is important.

Here, digitalisation would help in three ways. First, inter-institutional migration currently involves a cumbersome admission procedure. less-cash campuses, if integrated and connected, would ease the process. Second, digitalisation teamed with a uniform all-India mechanism of admission would cut down time lapse in resumption of studies. Third, schoolchildren tend to drop out when their parents migrate. A digitised school economic system could help in identifying whether the child has dropped out only temporarily or permanently.

A digitised educational economy will also serve as a platform for training the future generation. Ten years from now, many children currently in school will be either participants in higher education or constitute the core of the country’s workforce.

In addition to skill development, if adequately trained in the use of digitalisation, they will develop values associated with the use of technology such as ethics in transactions, transparency, responsibility, sharing, appreciation, efficiency and self-reliance.

And, for students in higher-education institutions, who are already exposed to digital media and smartphones, use of technology in economic transactions would be an added training for adopting a less-cash system on gaining employment. These factors have also been underlined in the upcoming New Education Policy (NEP) through its 33 themes put out for countrywide consultation.

The proposed NEP emphasises the importance of promoting technology at all levels of education — in schools, higher education and adult education. It also highlights the use of Information and Communication Technology (ICT) in standardising the quality of delivery and services to students in higher education.

The use of ICT in imparting functional literacy to non-literates is equally significant for fulfilling the intent of transforming India into a digital economy. Internationally, the fulfilment of Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), too, requires digital interventions and use of technology. It should be obvious that the introduction of digitalisation is directly linked with country’s national education policy and its global commitments.

 

Infrastructure Accessibility

The actual execution of less-cash mode of educational system is a comprehensive national initiative that requires serious monitoring. The current statistics do not offer an encouraging picture in this regard. According to District Information System for Education (DISE) 2014-15 data, only 25.97 per cent of schools in India have computers, only 61.67 per cent have electricity, and only 24.01 per cent have both computer and an electricity connection.

The Government’s initiatives such as school education as a Mission Mode Project (MMP) and e-Paathshaal have been key initiatives for guiding India’s education sector digitally. The idea of less-cash education system cannot be implemented in isolation but has to be a part of the broader educational reform, a comprehensive action plan.

Primarily, this would include availability of basic infrastructure such as electricity and computers. Along the line, there would have to be provision of facilities such as ATMs, online connectivity among schools, etc, across the country.

In bridging the infrastructural gap in educational facilities, national institutions that can provide yeoman service are: National Council for Teacher Education (NCTE), National Council of Educational Research and Training (NCERT), National University of Educational Planning and Administration (NUEPA), All India Council for Technical Education (AICTE), UGC, Indian Council for Social Science Research (ICSSR), and Indira Gandhi National Open University (IGNOU).

These institutions can provide research data on differentiated requirements for infrastructural facilities and provide research-based analyses of the readiness among students, teachers, parents and administrators in adopting different technology-based initiatives, and especially a less-cash education system.

In addition, research can be conducted to identify the funding and expenditure pattern in education to find regional variations and highlight good practices adopted by different States. like any other educational initiative, the role of teachers in this drive is inescapable. But for this, they need to be trained and motivated. Besides, in the pre- and in-service teacher-training curriculum, along with use of ICT in teaching-learning process, training for digital and less-cash education system in the curriculum should also be included.

To conclude, four major steps are required for this transition to succeed seamlessly. First, all schools must have basic infrastructure such as electricity and computers. Second, all students must have bank accounts in the school to facilitate fee payment, transfer of scholarships, etc. Third, the Government and educational institutions together need to embark on mass awareness campaigns and functional education for approval and proper use of digital technology by students, teachers and administrators. Fourth, there needs to be training of all stakeholders, especially children, to understand the nuances of the digital economic system. In short, integration, not isolation, is key to digitalising Indian education.

 

(The writer is an expert at the Education Division of the National Commission for the Protection of ChildRights (NCPCR), New Delhi. Views expressed are of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of the NCPCR. She can be reached at — madhulikasharma24@gmail.com)

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