Sheila Dikshit, Chief Minister of Delhi, spoke to Dr Ravi Gupta, Manjushree Reddy and Rozelle Laha, on the major initiatives taken by the Delhi Government to enable children from every section of the society to gain access to quality education

The Hon’ble Chief Minister of Delhi, Sheila Dikshit, received her primary education at Delhi’s convent of Jesus and Mary School and graduated from Miranda House, Delhi University and went on to obtain the post-graduation
degree in history.

“Delhi Government is Funding the Deployment of ICT in Schools”

During the past few years many new initiatives have been taken by the government to bring about an improvement in the quality of education that is being offered in our institutions. Please tell us about the nature of the initiatives that have been taken by the Delhi government. Please also shed light on the way you see the actual impact of these initiatives.

We have taken several steps. The right to education has served as a big boost to the education. It is enabling many youngsters from financially weaker sections of society to access quality education. We have also made a study of why government schools are doing badly. The pass percentage of students is fairly low, even though we are spending  reasonable sums of money on the education of every child. We have setup the Vidyalaya Kalyan Samiti (VKS), a School Welfare Committee, which caters to the needs of the children in the neighbourhood who are going to government run schools. The Committee ensures that the teachers are present in the classrooms and the students have access to quality reading material like textbooks, and that their uniforms are clean. The Committee also receives funds from the  government to take care of minor renovations of the classroom infrastructure like repairing of windows, toilets etc. We are also having schemes for providing children with free uniforms, free books. There is also a scheme for providing scholarships to students of SC/ST background.

You midday meals scheme is also leading to many positive outcomes, please tell us about it?

The midday scheme is a great success as it has resulted in lot of poor students joining our schools. Midday meals are given to children up to a particular class after that they are not given. However, in a city like Delhi, the fact that our schools teach English and provide new avenues for the students to get good jobs, once they become adults, is the major force attracting students.

Tell us about the schemes that Delhi Government has started for girl children.

We found that the girl children were not coming to schools as often as the boys. The government of Delhi has launched the new scheme for protection of the girl child. It is called the ‘Delhi Ladli Scheme.’ The scheme aims to enhance the social status of girl child in the society as well as in the family, ensuring proper education to make the girls self-reliant, ensuringher economic security and protecting them from discrimination and deprivation. The Ladli scheme has resulted in lot of girls coming to the schools. We have also started the Kishori Shakti Yojna to encourage and facilitate personal hygiene and other qualities in girl children. The Yojna is now serving more than 7 lakh girls in the National Capital Region, and I am glad to say that the number of girl students in our schools is on the rise.

Dr Ravi Gupta, Editor-in-Chief, digitalLEARNING magazine (L), in conversation with Sheila Dikshit (R)

Many children from poor families depend on the government run institutions for all their educational needs? What steps are you taking to bring about an improvement in the quality of education being offered in such institutions?

We have several monitoring mechanisms in place to ensure that the quality of education in our government aided or run institutions is up to the mark. It is not necessary that the poor students should depend only on the government schools. We have arrangements in place to ensure that even the best schools have to have certain number of children from poor families. The government is also giving aid to some schools to enable them to cater to the needs of poor children.

Can you enumerate the reasons due to which the ICT infrastructure in government schools is not quite up to the mark?

I agree that the infrastructure can be made much better. The Delhi government is funding the deployment of ICT in schools, but we are not able to achieve the best possible results as the teachers are not well trained. So we are now trying our best to educate the teachers in the usage of new technologies. We are working hard on this issue, and we are going to succeed in creating the best possible ICT infrastructure for our children. The Delhi government is also trying to rope in private companies through PPP models for the installation of ICT in our institutions.

It is a good thing that the number of students in our schools has gone up. However, after passing 12th, the same students start aspiring for higher education. But the country continues to face a great crunch of higher education seats. How are you planning to solve this problem? Also when it comes to teaching vocation skills to the students, what is your strategy?

The government is focused on enabling many more higher education institutions to come up. It is also true that not every student wants to go to the university. Many of them want to do courses like Hotel Management, Tailoring, Electrician training, and much else, so vocational education is also the need of the hour. We already have lot of universities and vocational training centres in the city, but they are clearly not proving to be enough, because as you  have said in the question, the demand for quality education is rising all the time.

Many States like Rajasthan, Uttar Pradesh and Madhya Pradesh have opened their gates for private universities. Is there any strategy for doing the same?

We are definitely trying to encourage private investments in education. We already have Amity University. Lot of private schools are also there. The Delhi Government is totally dedicated to fulfilling the educational needs of all the boys and girls who live in the national capital region. If private investments can lead to the creation of quality institutions for learning, then such institutions have to be encouraged. Our major agenda is to reform the system of education so that our students are able to reap the full benefits of latest technologies, courses and teaching techniques.

By Rozelle Laha, Elets News Network (ENN)

Solutions from ICT are emerging as the answer, largely because stakeholders in the education space see such technologies as an efficient and cost-effective way of enhancing the scope, reach and also the relevance of education. When it comes to the actual implementation of ICT in our institutions, there is lot of debate happening about the best way forward. It will take lot of time before textbooks are entirely replaced by their digital versions.

There are issues like absence of motivation in some teachers regarding new technology, lack of basic infrastructure in the institutions. The digitisation of textbooks is also an issue, it will take time before texts are replaced by digital versions or are supplanted altogether by courseware aggregated from a variety of online and off-line resources. However, despite all the pitfalls, we are moving towards a world where students will learn at their own pace through Internet- connected devices. The teacher will serve as a guide, instead of a lecturer, and wandering among the students, he or she will inspire the students to learn at their own pace.

To take account of the real impact that ICT solutions are having on the education system, digitalLEARNING spoke to several CEOs, managing directors and professors who are playing a stellar role in several higher education institutions in India. The goal of the exercise was to have an unbiased outlook on the actual contributions that ICT is having on education. We also learned about the level of implementation at different institutions. In addition to ICT, the stakeholders we interacted with were also quizzed about the benefits of the National Knowledge Network (NKN).

In the pages that follow we present the insights that we have collated from higher education: 

ICTs are Tools of Change :: Dr Hari Krishna Maram, Managing Director and CEO, Imperial Group

 
NKN Will Put India Ahead of the Developed World :: Prof M J Xavier, Director, Indian Institute of Management (Ranchi)
 
ICT is a Game Changer :: Prof V S Rao, Director & Senior Professor, BITS-Pilani, Hyderabad Campus
 
Using ICT Effectively :: Prof Dr. Firdos Temurasp Shroff, Visiting Professor, Institute for Technology and Management (ITM), Kharghar, Mumbai.
 
Quality Education through ICT :: Dr R S K Lakhshmana Prabhu, Managing Director, PSNA College of Engineering Technology
 
ICT Reaches out to Masses :: Prof S S Prasada Rao, Dean & Director, Hyderabad School of Business

Dr Augustine F Pinto
Founder – Chairman,
Ryan International Group of Institutions

“A nation will be known by its people and the people will be known by their education and culture.”

Globalisation has brought sweeping economic and technological changes in society. This has had seminal impact on the    education system around the world. Over the years education has undergone tremendous changes, however today there is a growing demand for quality Holistic Education. Every educator therefore has a great responsibility to integrate the internationally recognised and well researched concepts and trends in curriculum to equip students for the future that is unexplored. Educators must understand that there is a need to develop global citizens for more humane and sustainable world. Education should not merely prepare the young generation for employment, it should also equip them for life. Students must learn the art of becoming lifelong learners and to be catalysts of change in the world. The educational experiences must provide young generation the information and tools to understand what is happening in the world and how it affects lives.

Education should develop students with global consciousness needed to support human rights and ecological  sustainability. There are numerous issues such as global warming, environmental degradation, war, conflicts, terrorism, racism and so forth in the world today. Education therefore at all levels has a significant role to play in preparing young minds to promote peace, to prevent conflict and to bring about human development. Educators and policymakers have to find ways and means to translate these aspects into curriculum to provide the students competence and skills to understand the global issues and be the agents of peace and harmony in society and world at large.

The scope for growth is tremendous. However, the progress of our nation will largely depend on the quality of education,
which must be of global standards to bring about economic and social development. India is one of the biggest human resource suppliers in the world and if we as educators want to create world class global organisations to produce application-career oriented world class citizens, we first need to create an environment that encourages strong emphasis on hands-on-projects, experiential learning, problem solving, and critical thinking through collaborative and cooperative learning. Collaborative approach that includes academic rigour combined with strong experiential learning is the key and integration of ICT is deemed necessary for future employability and successful careers. Our generation of children should be helped to grow intellectually, emotionally, physically, spiritually and socially.

The Biblical proverb rightly states, “Train up a child in the way he should go and when he is old he shall not depart from it.” (Proverbs 22:6). As educators we need to make every possible endeavour for developing responsible and employable global citizens for a better world.

Ryan Pinto
CEO, Ryan Group of Institutions

The Indian education system is one of the largest systems in the world. It caters to the need of more than 190 million students of different socioeconomic backgrounds in pre-primary to primary, upper primary, secondary and higher secondary to college and university level. Though rapidly improving, India still has a long way to go. To provide our students with the talents necessary to compete in this marketplace, we must recognise and accept the challenges before us today.

Ryan way is defined as KASSM — Knowledge, Attitude, Skills, Social and Morals. Values with sound knowledge and the wisdom to use it constructively is what provides the differential factor to our students at Ryan.

Teachers are no longer the only source of knowledge. We have moved on from teaching to facilitating. Teaching today in India is not what it used to be. There is a fundamental change in the way teaching works today. Teaching is about enabling learning from a conceptual point and its application in real life. The methods of imparting knowledge are no longer confined to a chalk and board but have extended to advanced technology and virtual learning. The gap between students and teachers has narrowed giving learning a totally new perspective. The need of the hour is to build the social infrastructure of the country, hence people should give more importance to academia, healthcare, education while other career options could be mass media, finance, legal and compliance and arts.

There is a wide gap between what is taught in schools or colleges and what is actually required in the real world. This gap needs to be closed and institutes should only focus on imparting relevant education. In other words pedagogy and the tools for pedagogy both have to be reviewed from time to time.