Paradigm change

Effect of ICTs on modern education

Ila Joshi Academic & Research Head, EMRC, Ahmedabad, Gujarat
TAV Murthy Director, INFLIBNET Centre, Ahmedabad, Gujarat

ICTs promise to expand the basic nature of education. Such as the ability to link written with audio and visual material...

The new century has brought changes practically in all spheres of global communication and global economy. This directly made an impact in education sector leading to several structural changes in the form, organisation and delivery of educational services.

Education was primarily seen as a set of skills, attitudes and values required for citizenship and effective participation in modern society. Today it is rather seen as commodity to be purchased in order to build a ‘skill set’ to be used in market place by multinational corporations.

Technology for education
However, the thinkers have great hope from the 21st century regarding the quality of the education. Adhav and Joshi write that the present status of education emphasizes on deliberation of information while in the future it will be knowing about knowledge and its source.

The key features of the evolving educational system shall be:

• Switching over from ‘teaching’ to ‘education’.
• Stronger bias towards fundamental knowledge and development of an individual’s creative potential.
• Utilisation of new information technology in the selection, accumulation, systematisation, and transfer of knowledge.

The role of ICTs in fact is to facilitate all the above mentioned functions and not only the last one as it is envisaged by the author.

Expand nature of education
ICTs have promised to expand the basic nature of education. Such as the ability to link written with audio and visual material that can enrich the full range of the learner’s senses. The technology also creates a qualitative expansion in the means of education by taking a process rooted in the one-way delivery of knowledge and making it more participatory and reciprocal. Computer communication takes a system of learning based in narrow linear, narrative forms, and opens it up to a wide range of nonlinear, exploratory processes that allow the learner to make full use of his or her own multiple cognitive maps. The students mutually constitute their learning environments, which grow in the learning process.

Similarly the incorporation of ICTs in education and training programmes has profound influence in teaching and teacher preparation. The student accesses knowledge and information through Internet, TV, satellite and cable network and digital media to synchronize learning mediated through these multiple delivery mechanisms.

Access to information
The modern world counts on the new information and communication technology (ICT) in facilitating the process of democratisation of access to information and knowledge. This may lead to a new more humanistic culture by advances in health and education empowering through networking small players such as NGOs, interactive teaching and long distance education, attainment of new employable skills and access to a wealth of knowledge.

To re-emphasize more than any other social institution, formal education is fundamentally about knowledge, information, and communication. It is the new information technologies that will help us to build up an open educational system. And in turn the open educational system will bring about dramatic change in the technology of obtaining knowledge owing to more efficient organisation of students’ cognitive activities. The development of online courses, libraries and other information resources, and the marketing of distant or online education by businesses and schools eager to profit from opportunities to expand their horizons, is the beginning of what some see as a revolution in learning.

Knowledge management
There is an estimate that students barely recall 17 per cent of the lecture material after a week. Because of the rapidly shrinking half-life of information, even the value of that 17 per cent must be questioned. Teaching facts therefore is a poor substitute for teaching how to learn. It is required to giving the skills to be able to preserve or locate, evaluate and effectively use information. In this context the role of ICTs is crucial in shaping the services for future in knowledge management. The knowledge management environment embraces the entire information transfer cycle, from the creation, structuring and representation of information to its dissemination and use.

Libraries
The important aspect of knowledge management is library which has changed its face in wake of the new technology. The library is the place where the information seeker can access information without restriction - the access role. The second role has been the world-wide effort of libraries to archive, protect and provide ongoing access to information and the world’s cultural heritage for the long term - the preservation role.

The institution of library creates a healthy global information infrastructure with rich public and private domains; multilingual in character; with library users secure in their private and confidential use of information; with society placing its trust in the library; and where globalization is a recognised value and opportunity. The modern library, which is termed as virtual library or e-Library, is drastically changing the scenario of accessing the information/component. Computer network library automation is playing pivotal role in storing and retrieving of information. Both users and information personally have to gear up to this modern technique.

Limitation
But researchers are increasingly acknowledging that the promise of computer-mediated education is sadly falling far short of the reality. The main reasons are that the school system has not kept pace with the rest of society in terms of IT use and over expectations have clouded the important values, particularly the values of citizenship, that have historically grounded traditional education. There is also a growing concern that cyberspace is evolving into a largely commercial space, an electronic mall whose main activity is electronic or e-Commerce rather than public debate and education.

Education Policy
Policies on education in almost every democracy are clear about the ideal of equity and equality of access. Education is one of the most effective instruments available for addressing inequality.

It is possible to meet the objectives only if there are ample opportunities for the education. Conventional education system has fallen short. Open education and use of ICTs has been looked upon as a solution. But proper policy to evade the effect of commercialisation of education is essential.

Consequently, there is a case to be made in relation to online courses for creating policy guidelines that makes it necessary for providers to make appropriate provisions such as free supply of appliances, connection, etc. to marginalized groups.

Murli Manohar Joshi, Minister Human Resource Development and Science and Technology, India; presented a country paper on ‘Higher Education in India Vision and Action’ in UNESCO World Conference on Higher Education in the Twenty-First Century, Paris; October 1998. He stated that India recognised that the new global scenario poses unprecedented challenges for the education system. Concepts of access, equity, relevance and quality can be operationalised only if the system is both effective and efficient. Hence, the management of education and the total networking of the system for effective management have become an important issue. The shift can occur only through a systemic approach to change as also the development of its human resource, and networking the system through information and communication technology.

Education in India
The figures on the ground reality suggest possibility and difficulty in successful implementation of policy regarding ICTs in increasing spread and quality of education in future.

The literacy rates improved remarkably from 1991-2001 that is from 52 per cent to 65 per cent in 2001. However, this social reform has prompted growth to some extent while equity has suffered in all spheres including education. The education from primary to highest level is designed separately for the rich and the poor. Female literacy at national level was merely 8 per cent in 1951, which has increased to 54 per cent in 2001. However, still it is less than male literacy, which is 76 per cent.

During the last five decades the participation of girls has increased in primary, middle, secondary/higher education. However, it is still below 50 per cent at all stages of education. Girls have started participating in higher and professional courses. They are now entering into Masters of Commerce, Bachelor of Science, Bachelor of Engineering and MBBS. However, this encouraging trend is confined to urban areas only and the educated classes. Girls belonging to the urban slum and rural areas continue to lag behind.


Infrastructure of education

School education
There has been a massive expansion of schooling facilities during the post independence period. The number of primary schools grew from about 0.21m in 1950-51 to about 0.642m in 1999-2000. The upper primary schools increased from 13,596 in 1950-51 to 0.198m in 1999-2000. There are estimated 1,20,000 secondary and senior secondary schools in India, now. The growth rate of secondary schools during 1986 and 1993 was at 25 per cent and senior secondary schools 52 per cent compared to about 8 per cent growth rate of primary schools is rather an early indication of pressures that are likely.

Higher education
India has 214 universities and equivalent institutions of seven open universities. The number of students has reached the level of 6.75 million and there are 0.321m teachers in the higher education system. But the future projection suggests massive requirement of infrastructure.

This linear projection will be grossly invalidated by factors like success in secondary education, improvement in economic condition, etc. For the additional enrolment of about 4 million students, India will need a massive new infrastructure. Both Center and States are at the end of their wit for more funds for education. The state will neither be able to provide facilities nor will be able to refuse places in higher education.

There is a great hope from ICTs in finding answer to the problems. As Dr. Murli Manohar Joshi said that the educational expertise was concentrated in a few islands of excellence at a time when the country was struggling to build a huge educational infrastructure, find funds and appoint good teachers. ICTs provide answer to the problem and can help to take the lectures of expert educators to remote area, which did not have the required facilities or human resources.

Individual examples
A case of Barak Valley: The establishment of Assam University has stimulated the youth to go for higher studies not only from the valley but also from the different parts of the country. Teachers from different parts of the country are working here. Therefore, people belonging to different ethnic categories have assembled at Silchar. Though the university gives a lot of facilities to its students to do research work, infrastructural problems like water shortage, block the progress. In this case reducing burden on infrastructure by creating learning facility at doorstep can be of immense help.
Projected Enrolment in Higher Education

Source: Parhar 2002

Unique case of Andaman and Nicobar Islands: In 1967 the nearest college of these islands was either at Kolkata, Visakhapatnam or Madras. At present there are seven higher education institutions. But the performance of higher education in terms of pass percentage is not satisfactory. The hurdles are non-availability of question papers in time due to the failure of flights and communication channels. It is same with certificates which are not available even after four years in some of the cases, use of ICTs is an excellent solution here.

Assistance to learners
There is already a beginning of implementation of the policy so that ICTs can help the education sector. Some of the examples selected from India and across the world would provide the glimpse of it.

Indian examples
Under CLASS project and in its modified version, all secondary and senior secondary schools are being equipped with modern computing facilities. All fee-charging private schools have computers. More importantly, under Sarva Shiksha Abhiyan, Government of India is initiating a new program on computers in elementary schools during the 10th five-year plan with simputers. Further, official policy and programs have decided to set up SMART Schools on experimental basis. The University Grants Commission has equipped all universities and almost all colleges with computing facilities. Technical and engineering institutions are well equipped with computing facilities.The centrally sponsored scheme on educational technology has provided colour television and radio-cum-cassette players to almost all elementary schools. National level evaluation studies indicate that majority of the television sets and radio-cum-cassette players are in working condition though not necessarily in use. Such facilities are available in secondary schools almost in all states. The Country Wide Classroom Program has equipped all colleges and universities with television sets.

Under an Asian Development Bank funded project, a National Action Plan: In-service Education of Primary Teachers through Distance Education (NAP) was developed in 1996. The main proposition of the NAP was to set up a digital interactive television network connecting all SCERTs (State Council of Education Research and Training) with the national headquarters through a mesh network and all districts (District Institute of Education and Training) through a star network during the IXth Plan and to extend the network to the block level connecting all BRCs (Block Resource Centres) during the Xth plan.

A digital uplinking facility has been set up at Indira Gandhi National Open University (IGNOU). Development and Educational Communication Unit in Ahmedabad has facilities of ‘Training and Development Communication Channel’ for interactive mode. Similar facilities have been set up in Karnataka and Madhya Pradesh. Virtually, the districts in the country are either already connected or will be connected in the near future; and together it will be capable of creating countrywide virtual classroom.

This virtual classroom facility through interactive television is being extensively used by several national organizations like the NCERT (National Council of Educational Research and Training), IGNOU etc. Nonetheless, the most important deterrent is the cost of hiring the IGNOU uplink studio, pitched at USD 200 an hour; that too not easily accessible due to programs in the Gyan Darshan. In a separate endeavour, IGNOU is equipping all its 600+ study canters with digital reception facilities. It is likely to link its study centres with web-based return path whereby learners can communicate through e-mail. The University Grants Commission (UGC) has initiated a programme to provide electronic access, which will provide the best current and archival periodical literature from all over the world to the university community. Under the initiative UGC is modernizing the university campuses with State-of-the-art campus wide network and setting up its own nationwide communication network named UGC-infonet. UGC-Infonet will establish a channel for globalisation of education and facilitate the universities in marketing their services and developments through INFLIBNET (Information Library Network) a body of UGC primarily to automate and network the university libraries and institutions of national importance to share the resources effectively.

Limitations
However, the other side of the coin is that the most of the school and colleges do not have adequate ICT facilities. In the outer world there is a move from primitive and print media to modern electronic and multi-media. Our schools and colleges are still compromising with chalk and talk. Computers, computer labs, ICT labs, media are more for exhibition than for education. Out of about 11,562 colleges, 10 per cent have Internet and out of 250 universities, 5 per cent have Internet, however, they are rarely interconnected. Technology initiatives have often failed because too little thought has been given to maintain an institutional environment that nourishes the initiative.

Non-formal education
Though the beginning is moderate, policy thrusts and likely developments in the foreseeable future offer multiple opportunities of using ICTs for human development. There are examples in the field of non-formal education; one of them is given here. The MS Swaminathan Research Foundation has been involved in designing a programme called ‘information village’. It aims at bringing together a consortium of information communication professionals from the academia, media, government, public sector, private sector and experts in rural development to create a blend of modern communication technologies that would address the knowledge intensive requirements of the rural families as they make the transition of sustainable agriculture.

World perspective
Countries like Australia, Iceland, Canada and others are small in area but have dispersed population. They have successfully experimented ICTs for education. The World Bank’s African Virtual University is worth mentioning. The students have taken courses taught by the professors from universities around the world. Lectures are given in front of TV cameras in classrooms and the video is routed via fibre optics, ISDN lines or satellite to an uplink in Washington DC.

The students are able to talk with the instructors using the standard phone lines. e-Education systems are being implemented in schools all over the world. In England 10,000 schools have been linked up to Internet on the ‘National Grid for Learning’. Similar efforts have been made in France through the launch of government’s ‘Information Society Policy’.

The Commonwealth of Learning (COL) has been dedicated to increasing access to education since it began operating in 1989. It is operating in all the forms, from conventional print to e-Learning covering 54 countries of the commonwealth. Great strides have been made over the past few years in enhancing the capacity of e-Learning and finding ways to broaden the exposure. The Massachusetts Institute of Technology has made a recent announcement that it would make most of its course material available to the public through the Internet. As a result a university, where the annual tuition is about $39,000 anticipates that not only individuals but universities all over the world will take advantage of its course lists, lecture notes and even video taped lectures.

In the field of development
Asian Development Bank (ADB) has chalked out an action plan, which provides for the establishment of a centre for learning, information, communication and knowledge or CLICK. The centre will use Internet based e-Learning technique and communication system to spread knowledge and experience concerning development issues in Asia and the Pacific.

The Global Knowledge Partnership (GKP) founded in 1997 where more than 50 organisers such as UNICEF, IFAD, World Bank, InfoDev have banded together to exchange experiences and conduct the projects jointly. GKP has also created an informal coordinating and information exchange mechanism through GK-AIMS to which all partners contribute in a decentralised manner about the ongoing IT and knowledge related projects in the world.

Limitations
But researchers are increasingly acknowledging that the promise of computer-mediated education is sadly falling far short of the reality. The main reasons are that the school system has not kept pace with the rest of society in terms of IT use and over expectations have clouded the important values, particularly the values of citizenship, that have historically grounded traditional education. There is also a growing concern that cyberspace is evolving into a largely commercial space, an electronic mall whose main activity is electronic or e-commerce rather than public debate and education.

In conclusion, there is considerable potential in the educational uses of cyberspace, but there are also many challenges and dangers. Computers can provide the means to explore new forms of learning that break out of the traditional hierarchies of educational bureaucracy and develop genuine alternatives to rigid, passive approaches to learning. But they can also reify those hierarchies if they are applied without a commitment to the principles of equality, participation, privacy, mutual respect, and responsibility that historically provided the foundation for many of our systems of public education.

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