Dr Mala Mehra,
Principal, Hoerner College, Lucknow, UP
Train the students, teach them technologies, they will be quicker, they will be faster and they will be with the world
To quote an Indian mother staying abroad, “As parents, we are living in their world; they are not living in ours.” We need to understand that a child’s world is full of technology. We have to accept the child’s world as it is. We cannot expect them to adapt to our world.
To understand the real meaning of the term ‘space,’ and also to have a better insight into the world of a technology obsessed child, I paid a visit to the Zurich International School. It is an IB school in Zurich. It is a ‘green’ school that does not use paper; everything is online including the home work.
After interacting with the Principals, students, teachers and parents there, I realised that in India, we are neither ready, nor we do have infrastructure, and we certainly lack the mindset to fully accept this personalised space concept. At primary level, teachers and students maintain blogs. Teachers constantly update their blogs with their plan for the day. Students have their homework on blogs.
At senior or middle schools abroad, the main focus was on mastering and not on achievement. In India, we simply tell him what to learn and how to learn it and how to re-produce it in the examination. CBSE has mandated one smart class for every school affiliated to the board. All applications in Higher Education would have to go online. In fact, they did their pilot this year. To increase the reach in rural areas, CBSE made hubs where people can go and do their stuffs online.
Indian students have the space, they just do not know of how to use it. Educa-tors need to train students on time and space management. I personally feel that once they have access to the right kind of education, the children of today will be able to grow up into great assets for society.
