2020 saw a big change in college hiring trends

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June 3, 2022

S Pasupathi is the Chief Operating Officer of HirePro, an AI powered hiring platform. With over two decades of experience in the recruitment industry, Pasupathi’s expertise lies with recruitment consulting, recruitment setup and implementation, change management, compliance, automation, metrics and training. He holds an Integrated M.Sc. in Mathematics and a degree in Computer Applications from Indian Institute of Technology Delhi. He spoke to the DIGITAL LEARNING MAGAZINE about placement trends.

What is the change that you see when it comes to talking about placements?

Organisations across industries have been on a hiring spree, primarily because of rising business demands and high attrition rates. Campus recruitment is one of the age-old ways used by businesses to augment their talent pool, and the past year saw a very high demand for college hiring. Generally, college hiring is an operationally intensive activity as it involves liaising with colleges, traveling to campuses, and conducting assessments and interviews. However, in the year 2020, the entire volume of college hiring has been seamlessly done without the candidates or the hiring managers having to move out of their locations. Since companies were not physically present on campuses, they started placing unprecedented importance on building their employer brands to attract the right talent, making it one of the biggest changes in college hiring in recent times. The last two years have been difficult and different for campus placements. How far do you think technology has supported in keeping it all together?

Technology has been the saviour for high-volume college hiring, which typically involves the following activities:

• Connecting with placement officers and freezing dates

• Working with interview panels internally, figuring out their availability, and planning drives

• Conducting assessments, followed by interviews

• Rolling out offers and keeping in touch with candidates These activities were mostly done through a combination of telephonic conversations, emails, and management of data over spreadsheets, apart from using assessment platforms on the ground. Today, technology makes it possible for organisations to manage this workflow seamlessly and addresses the challenges that one could face because of the remote nature of hiring. Here are some of the pertinent challenges that technology can solve:

• Branding of the company as an employer of choice

• Identity check of the candidates to ensure no impersonation during assessments or interviews

• Proctoring while an examination is underway

• Seamless document uploading, verification, and offer rollout.

Share your experience on how campus placements jumped from a three month to a three-week cycle with technology interventions?

There were certain operational limitations when the entire campus hiring was offline. Some of these were:

• The ability to conduct only a limited number of assessments on a day because of the need for physical presence of the company and proctors

• Availability of panels was always a challenge as they had to spend 2-3 working days

• The logistics and costs involved in travel and stay for the recruitment team/interviewers

With online assessments, the assurance of the sanctity of exams and a platform that supports scale, the number of concurrent assessments which a company could do went up significantly. Instead of one college at a time, it is now possible for organisations to accommodate multiple colleges in a single test. The significant reduction in the operational effort to plan travel has enormously increased the interviewers’ productivity. Also, it is possible to include a larger set of panels with fewer hours rather than limited panels and blocking their day. Since interviewers could be aggregated across locations, the interviewing bandwidth expanded significantly. We have seen peaks where companies conduct 5,000 to 10,000 interviews in a single day, which would otherwise take a week or two. Some of these changes have helped organisations in reducing the duration of their campus hiring cycle from months to weeks.

Excess use of technology is also said to be hampering education and creating a disruptive environment. How can this be managed effectively?

Individuals learn from peers/class besides what is taught by the teachers. A teacher, teaching in a physical class, gets feedback from students about the pace, clarity etc. A complete remote education, especially in schools and colleges, has significantly hampered learning and development of social skills. Most of the full-time residential programmes not only impart education but also help students to build their social networks which helps them throughout their life. The hostel life shapes individuals’ personalities to manage things on their own and helps them to build discipline and make decisions. Remote learning gives access to the best of faculty, reduces cost and effort to travel etc. However, for regular learning, interactive, live sessions are very important. Sitting at home trying to attend classes in front of a computer does not help.

“Introduction of internet in learning was a pivotal moment”

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digitalLEARNING Network

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June 3, 2022

Rohit Saha, Co-Founder, CollegeDekho, has over 20 years of experience across industries like telecom and IT. He writes about the disruptive technologies in higher education.

Technology constantly evolves. Every once in a while, a new technological advancement comes our way that does away with the previous practices and becomes the new norm. The field of education has gone through similar technological advancements over the years and the introduction of the internet in teaching and learning practices was a pivotal moment. Let’s have a look at a few disruptive technologies in the higher education space.

Online Learning: Online learning has been slowly gaining popularity. The pandemic merely hurried it along and now it is generally accepted as a viable alternative to traditional education. It holds many advantages over the traditional lecture formats. Video conferencing and video-on-demand streaming are some features that have ensured the success of online learning. It has revolutionized the way education is delivered and has made learning more accessible than before. Many students were unable to join their colleges abroad due to the pandemic induced travel restrictions and online classes allowed these students to still take up admission to their preferred colleges.

Chat-Based Collaboration: Even though online learning has proved to be a viable alternative to traditional education, it lacks peer interaction. Students need to discuss their learnings with each other and chat-based forums have helped in accomplishing that.

AI Learning: Research has shown that every student has a different capacity to understand various topics. What one student can understand in 5 minutes, the other student might need an hour. Artificial Intelligence Learning ensures that each student is able to learn at their own pace.

Interactive/ Digital Whiteboards: One of the biggest challenges that college teachers faced during the pandemic lockdowns was the lack of a board-like object to write down the highlights of the class. Interactive Whiteboards helped fill this need as not only did they work as a traditional blackboard but the digital nature of these boards ensured advanced features like pattern recognition capabilities as well. Pattern recognition helps the board convert handwritten text, shapes and drawings into digitally transmittable content. This is especially useful for engineering and medical classes in colleges.

Virtual and Augmented Reality: Both Virtual and Augmented Reality are relatively new technologies. VR can provide the best solution as it combines face-to-face interaction and online education in a vivid encounter. The biggest advantage of VR is being able to create any environment and make the learning experience very interactive. Augmented Reality (AR) mostly uses cell phones to add a layer of information to physical reality. AR helps add additional information that adds value to the learning experience. For instance, with the help of AR, a student can better navigate through a new campus or they can find additional information about a painting in an art gallery. The biggest advantage that AR has over VR is the lack of infrastructure required. These days most students carry a smartphone and that is precisely what is needed to implement augmented reality. VR on the other hand requires a VR headset which is not cheap. Even though most colleges are yet to implement both these technologies, there is no doubt that these technologies are the future.

“Edtechs & education institutes need to rethink to address the need to weave technology into education”

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digitalLEARNING Network

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June 3, 2022

In the times of Instant Gratification and ‘On demand’ purchases, one may wonder how this will play up in the education sector that has largely been a brick-and-mortar system. Education is influenced by superior classroom teaching pedagogy and largely a multi step, long process of learning, application and milestone-based growth.

As the consumption patterns are changing with a stronger appetite to consume more content in less span of time, education institutes and ed-tech companies surely have a huge process of thinking to do. A casual conversation with a professor of a premier B-School in India brought out a powerful depiction on post-COVID times and the dependence on technology. He said, “We need to rethink the way higher education is delivered. The technology has shrunk boundaries and students are finding value in being at home and getting degrees along with picking up work experience through projects. Even though we are amongst the top 5 B-Schools in the country, we need to develop new ways of providing content to students that will bring them closer to actual learning despite shorter attention spans.”

In such a backdrop, daunting challenges are staring at India’s education model. From inefficiencies in basic education that existed even before the pandemic, where one in two children lacked basic reading proficiency at the age of 10, to a staggering 46% unemployment rates reported at graduation and post-graduation levels, there has to be technological intervention at a massive scale to repair the current problems.

Coinciding with the learning crisis is the Fourth Industrial Revolution which demands a skilled workforce that is ready to deliver and adapt as fast as they can with a stronger and deeper understanding of emerging business models. Thus, the new imperative now is to reimagine education and align it with the unprecedented technological transformation. While critics may have a view on the service delivery models of new age companies, ED-tech companies as well as education institutes will need to rethink on new ways to deliver education to address the impending need to weave technology into education.

Educational institutes can bring about this change strategically and in a phased manner:

• Start with the basic premise that technology doesn’t replace teachers. Teachers must co-exist for better learning of students. The tech solutions are impactful only when complemented by teachers whose training and continuous professional development is the mainframe agenda of the institutes.

• Leverage the digital boost provided by the Government of India in form of tech infrastructure, internet connectivity and programmes such as Digital India, open-source learning and the new education policy that urges integration of technology at each level.

• Improve governance systems, including learner feedback processes, ability to innovate on the learning design, establishing correlation between skills taught and skills imparted, and leveraging matrices such as improvement in employability at the core of each intervention.

• Collaborate with Industry and ensure there is meaningful participation beyond campus for familiarisation with corporate formats.

Intervention of technology at the higher education level should improve multiple matrices that have been a cause of concern and has proven to be an opportunity for a comprehensive solution. These matrices could include:

• Engaging learners in formats that help impart essential skill sets and thus, improve employability

• Curation and integration of solutions through enhanced corporate – academia partnerships

• Incorporating the voices of each stakeholder have been considered – teachers, learners, academic institutes and corporates at large.

Delhi University receives AICTE approval for MBA programme in ODL mode

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digitalLEARNING Network

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June 2, 2022

The University of Delhi has received the approval from the All India Council for Technical Education (AICTE) for the Master of Business Administration (MBA) Programme in Open and Distance Learning (ODL) mode from academic session 2022-23. “Now, the approval of the Distance Education Bureau, University Grant Commission is awaited. As soon as the DEB-UGC approval is received, the programme will be started,” DU statement mentioned.

Meanwhile, the application process deadline for the postgraduate (PG) admission 2022 has been extended. The last date to apply for DU PG admission 2022 is now June 10. Candidates can apply for PG courses at Delhi University through the official website- pgadmission.uod.ac.in.

The candidates belonging to the general, OBC, and EWS categories can pay and an application fee of Rs 750, while the registration fee for the students belonging to the SC and ST, and PwBD categories is Rs 300.

Technology: the pen and paper of our times

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digitalLEARNING Network

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June 2, 2022

Technology has revolutionised the field of education. Education as a social collective has moved away from just being discussed and debated within the classrooms through blackboards and chalks to an increasing use of technology in schools and colleges across the world. Even ten years ago, teachers and students might not have imagined the degree to which technology would impact education. In fact, with the onset of computers in education, it has become easier for teachers to impart knowledge and for students to acquire it. The use of technology has made the process of teaching and learning all the more enjoyable.

Over the past decade, technology has changed the way we looked at education or its outreach capabilities. It goes without saying that technology has widened the most important aspect of education access. Technology engages students to often retain more information. It also provides meaningful learning experiences by providing hands-on learning opportunities that can be integrated into all school curricular areas, including mathematics, reading, science, and social studies as well as other academic subjects.

Students these days are smarter, faster on the uptake and better-placed to understand the world they live in. It is that bigger picture, or the external stimulus, technology brings to both learning and teaching. And we are not talking about just cellphones and smart boards here.

What’s more, technology has created greater opportunities for collaboration among students, and among students and teachers. Not too long back, exchange of ideas, lessons, assessing effective information and perceptive behavior were confined to classrooms. Against this backdrop, technology arrived as an enabler, bringing the whole world into the segmented domain of education. Today, through the use of technology, students can give feedback to their teachers about the progress they are making and at the same time, cross-pollinate minds with peers who don’t sit in the same classroom.

A paradigm shift has taken place in the roles of teachers and learners in smart classrooms. Although in some traditional institutions passive learning is still continuing, wherein a teacher speaks and students listen without any heightened sense of curiosity, many schools and colleges are using technology in assisting teachers to be an able guide to enhance learning skills.

One of the greatest source of information are search engines which have been used as an effective tool for searching information where both teachers and students are benefited. In case if a student or teacher wants to search for an information online, google has been able to drive the optimatisation by showing up relevant information through various websites. The application of technology has made education more collaborative. There are online forums where subject experts can meet and discuss subject specific topics, review the syllabus and plan assessments to enhance the process of teaching. Teachers can impart customised education to cater different learning abilities and needs of the students.

There are different online education programs available which has given a new dimension to education. The students and teachers can be a part of one virtual classroom, even if they are physically far away from each other. There are online libraries with books, journals, encyclopedias, etc. where students can access various resources, highlight, save and use the soft copies.

Technology is also solving immediate-world problems in classrooms, the ease of research being a downright benefit. Even though Internet is parallel intelligence, it is making students aware that what they are learning are about real-world problems, real people, real places and evolving thought processes of the humanity.

Although technology’s presence in education has been penetrating for over a decade now, there was no better a time than in the recent past to acknowledge its sheer benefits keeping teachers and students connected with reality. During the lockdown period after the outbreak of COVID, students at random created online groups, web pages and virtual communities to share concerns, participated in debates, learnt and gave feedback to teachers by enriching and comprehending the bigger picture of learning.

At the other side of the spectrum, teachers are turning into trainers as they have begun to feel that enhancing their learning skills through a variety of online tools and making students understand has proved too be a rich repository of knowledge education will be accessing in the years to come. The internet is being used as a source of providing information where students will play a more active role, which will help them retain more information.

In today’s fast changing world, most of the jobs involve the use of computers and advanced technologies. We all need to be computer savvy to keep in pace with the moving world. We live in a technologically advanced world where it has become necessary for us to be familiar with the latest technologies and inventions. So, computer technology has become an integral part of school and college curriculum.

Edtech startup Udayy shuts down; to return about $8.5 mn to investors

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digitalLEARNING Network

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June 2, 2022

Gurugram-based edtech startup Udayy shut down its operations in April, three years after its inauguration in 2019 and Udayy will now be returning around $8.5 Mn to a few of its investors.

According to the CEO, Saumya Yadav, Udayy was a pandemic baby and had not witnessed the world without the pandemic before. While it was doing well during the peak months of the pandemic, its business decelerated after the schools started reopening.

Started by Yadav, Mahak Garg, and Karan Varshney in 2019, the core business of Udayy was offering live learning courses for children in grades between 1 and 5. Last year, the startup claimed it had users from over 45 cities and towns across India, with more than 400 classrooms being run on a daily basis. Once the schools reopened and parents started spending money there, they had less willingness to pay for the online edtech platform. Besides, the students also didn’t have time or energy for online classes, Yadav said. Udayy started seeing signs of impending troubles from July last year and tested several other models to sustain its operations. The startup explored opportunities in offline education centres, but later realised they were very expensive.

Besides, Udayy also launched a free app. It aimed to first scale the app and then monetise it. While the app saw a lot of traction, it was difficult to monetise it as people mostly spent time on it as it was free, said Yadav

Towards Nipun Haryana and Nipun Bharat

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digitalLEARNING Network

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June 2, 2022

When New Education Policy 2020 focuses on foundational learning as the bedrock for all future learning. It puts a spotlight on the gravity of the issue at hand – that over 5 crore elementary level students (pg 8, NEP 2020) have not attained foundational literacy and numeracy (FLN). A deficiency of FLN skills leads to a learning gap in such students, resulting in their dropouts in later stages of schooling. To address this, the Government of India launched the NIPUN Bharat Mission on 5th July 2021, with the aim of attaining foundational literacy and numeracy for all children. The Mission advocates that students, along with their schools, teachers, parents, and communities, must be urgently supported and encouraged in every way possible to help carry out this all-important target and mission, which forms the basis of all future learning.

Haryana is duly committed to achieve the objectives of the NIPUN Bharat Mission for foundational literacy (Hindi and English) and numeracy for grades 1-3. Accordingly, Government of Haryana launched the NIPUN Haryana Mission on 30th July 2021. Under the mission, Haryana is undertaking various academic and governance initiatives to ensure that all students of grades 1 to 3 become grade-level FLN competent. These initiatives will be supported by a robust tech-enabled monitoring system to track all the factors inside and outside of a classroom that affect the learning outcomes of children.

The most critical of these factors is the making available the teaching-learning materials (TLM), teaching-learning equipment (TLE), and teacher resource materials that leverage innovative competency-based pedagogy to create a joyful learning environment in a classroom. We have conducted research on best practices on pedagogy 1 which has been customized as per local context in partnership with our foundation partners. As a result, our government schools have appropriate TLM, TLE and activity based pedagogy for joyful learning. Lesson Plans and Teacher Guides have been created to help teachers plan their teaching and incorporate best practices of classroom management and timetable management. All materials have been designed keeping in mind a shift towards competency-based learning. Competency based learning is focused on student learning outcomes (LOs). It divides competencies into explicit and measurable learning outcomes. It further aims to focus on the learning needs of each child instead of a one-size-fits-all approach. Providing instructions at each child’s levels of readiness is critical to make students fall in love with the learning process.

Special attention has been given to Teacher Professional Development (TPD) or the capacity-building of our primary teachers. A 3-day teacher training has been conducted in the State for all ~36,000 primary teachers. They have been oriented on the NIPUN Bharat and NIPUN Haryana Mission, and have been introduced to innovative pedagogical interventions in the teaching of Hindi, Mathematics, and English. Further blended trainings have been planned with the aim to empower teachers to create an engaging and stress-free learning environment for their students.

With regards to assessing the learning levels, the aim of assessments is to be independent, periodic and holistic. There are two types of assessments – school-based assessments and large scale assessments.

We are strengthening school-based assessments to decentralize the approach and make regular monitoring of student learning possible without the stress usually observed in high-stakes onetime exams. Teachers will use the state’s skill passbook to assess students on 2 grade-level competencies. Large-scale assessments will be sample-based and conducted at a lower frequency. These include the National Achievement Survey (once every three years) and baseline/endline exams (annual).

With regards to assessing the learning levels, the aim of assessments is to be independent, periodic and holistic. There are two types of assessments – school-based assessments and large scale assessments. We are strengthening school-based assessments to decentralize the approach and make regular monitoring of student learning possible without the stress usually observed in high-stakes one-time exams. Teachers will use the state’s skill passbook to assess students on 2 grade-level competencies. Large-scale assessments will be sample-based and conducted at a lower frequency. These include the National Achievement Survey (once every three years) and baseline/endline exams (annual).

IEC (Information, Education, Communication) is another critical aspect of the mission. An IEC campaign has been developed keeping all stakeholders in mind including teachers, parents, academic mentors, administration such as DEEOs, BEOs, and the general public, leveraging materials like infographics, school-to-parent communication material, letters, and channels like social media, radio, print and TV. Various community level events including school readiness melas, book fairs, reading events, gunot savas etc. will also be conducted. We have made a special effort to include parents as the key enablers in the mission. Research has shown that whenever parents are involved in their child’s learning process, the learning outcomes usually improve. We have created provisions to ensure daily interaction with parents about their child’s learning. Through WhatsApp groups, we share updates with parents about daily activities conducted and skills taught to their children. They are encouraged to take a regular interest in their child’s learning and take part in home-based activities.

Technology will play a key role in implementation and monitoring of all these initiatives. For NIPUN Haryana Mission, we have planned for a robust all-comprehensive integration of technology that makes dissemination of content, information, monitoring, evaluation and decision-making efficient and effective. The plan includes development of an FLN mobile application, a web application, NIPUN Haryana Mission website, and other tools. The FLN mobile application is a key highlight of the plan. It will be a multi-stakeholder solution, bringing all the key stakeholders including teachers, parents, mentors, officials together at one platform. Each stakeholder will have access to their own interface in the application according to their roles and responsibilities. This will ensure better communication, easy access of information, reporting, and monitoring of the critical KPIs of the mission.

Haryana has been leading the way among all the states in implementation of NEP 2020 imperatives and lays paramount importance on achieving the goals of foundational learning. Ensuring quality education at foundational levels will go a long way in providing equitable access to quality education at higher levels, later on leading to a better standard of life. Thus, we are determined to make certain that under the NIPUN Haryana Mission, each child in Haryana achieves grade-level competencies required under foundational literacy and numeracy and play our part in making the NIPUN Bharat Mission a success.

Overcoming covid challenges with it initiatives

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digitalLEARNING Network

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June 2, 2022

The nationwide lockdowns imposed due to the COVID pandemic brought forth multifold challenges for the state governments and the citizens. Munish Chandan, Head – State eGovernnance Mission, Department of IT, Electronics and Communication, Government of Haryana, while addressing the Education Innovation Summit, highlighted how the Government of Haryana leveraged IT solutions to overcome the challenges and ensure a smooth delivery of services to the citizens.

When the lockdowns were imposed, the only sector that was functional was the government sector, especially the IT department. The government was tirelessly working day and night to ensure that services are delivered seamlessly to the last citizen.

Citizen mobilisation

Speaking of innovative measures taken by the Government of Haryana, Chandan said, “As soon as the lockdowns were announced, we started a ‘Sangharsh Senani’ concept. The Chief Minister came up with the idea that the government could call for volunteers – Sangharsh Senanisto help the people as well as the government. For this, we invited applications from people from numerous domains including doctors, nurses, grocery store owners, etc. and their availability was informed to the district officers, deputy commissioners and the Chief Minister’s Office (CMO). Within three days of the launch of the online portal for Sangharsh Senani, we received nearly 60,000-70,000 people who volunteered. In the later phase, during the second wave, we utilised this portal to rope in people who had recovered from COVID and were ready to donate their blood plasma.” All the efforts made by the government were to facilitate the citizens and ensure that none of them face any issues due to the lockdowns, he added.

Streamlining service delivery

Another innovative step that the Government of Haryana took was the launch of the Aatmanirbhar Portal. Previously, this was launched as Bank slot & Bank cash delivery at home portal – an initiative of the Finance department. Lockdown posed as a challenge for the people to reach out to their nearest banks and withdraw cash for their everyday needs. Therefore, through this portal people could book a slot at their nearest bank within 15 minutes. For small banks, five slots were earmarked in a day while for medium banks eight slots, and 10-12 slots for large banks. People were allowed to book a slot. Once a citizen books a slot, an e-pass is generated. The concerned person can show that at the branch and utilise the slot for the banking operations.

Further, he said, “Also, we started a unique concept of ‘Cash Delivery at Home’ with the Department of Posts. Under this, a postman could deliver a cash sum up to Rs 10,000 to the people at their doorstep. This was one-of-a-kind initiative, where the postman within a time frame of one working day could reach to any person residing in the state and deliver the cash amount. Later on, the Finance department introduced interest on pension scheme on this portal and renamed it as the Aatmnirbhar Portal.” All these initiatives are live at present and are available at atmanirbhar.haryana.gov.in, he added.

Managing the pandemic

The state government also came up with the Covid Sample portal and roped in all the government and private laboratories. The labs were asked to enter and update the details of the COVID patients on their health status and condition. As per the details, SMS and alerts were sent to the district administration and CMO along with the concerned person. Further, based on the alerts, actions were taken if there is a need to declare an area a containment zone or a buffer zone, or in case the person needs to be home isolated.

Apart from these initiatives, the government also came up with Healthy Haryana portal. Chandan said, “The Healthy Haryana portal was launched alongside its mobile application. This was an effective search engine designed to carry out surveys and identify the COVID hotspots. Through this, as many as seven lakh families were surveyed and COVID patients were identified and further actions were taken based on the data collected. The survey also came in handy to detect people with co-morbidities.

In an effort to prevent overcrowding at the mandis, the government prepared schedules for the farmers and asked them to visit the mandis accordingly to sell their farm produce. The schedules were handed over to the farmers beforehand and based on that the mandis operated while keeping social distancing in check.

UGC declares Periyar University’s online distance education programmes invalid

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digitalLEARNING Network

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June 1, 2022

After Annamalai University, the University Grants Commission (UGC) declared the online, distance learning (ODL) programmes offered by the Periyar University invalid. The UGC also warned students not to take admission at Periyar University.

According to the UGC notice, “It has come to the notice of the Commission through various communications received in UGC office that Periyar University, Tamil Nadu is functioning without a full time Director, inadequate full-time faculty, inadequate non-teaching staff, not yet established centre.”

“Running ODL programmes without prior approval of UGC in gross violation of conditions laid down under UGC (Open and Distance learning Programmes and Online Programmes) Regulations, 2020 and its amendments from time to time,” it said. “Taking admission in such programmes may endanger the career of the students, in view of the absence of recognition of the programmes by the UGC,” it added.

Digital divide in education need to reboot our government & public schools

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digitalLEARNING Network

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June 1, 2022

The Education sector in India has evolved massively with the adoption of technology tools. However, there is a digital divide that persists among the student population attending government schools and private schools. Highlighting the disparity and how the digital solutions and the National Education Policy (NEP) 2020 is addressing these woes, Dr Avantika Tomar, Executive Director, EY-Parthenon shared at the Elets Education Innovation Summit – Haryana Edition.

Dr Tomar was of the view that the digital learning divide in the country has become more prominent after the COVID pandemic. She gave a presentation highlighting how this digital divide translated on the ground and impacted the public education system in the country, especially the government school students.

She said, “One should first understand the public education system in the country before assessing the impact of the pandemic and digital learning divide in the country.” Presenting a few facts about the public education system, Dr Tomar highlighted that India has over 1.5 million schools, more than 50,000 educational institutions, and nearly 37 million students taking admissions each year. There are about 124 million students attending government schools and nearly 129 million students going to private and other schools.

The statistics: “Before we talk about actions taken by the Centre or the State governments to augment the school education system in the country, we need to consider these mammoth numbers. Any initiative taken needs to address 124 million students attending government schools and 1.08 million government schools where these actions will be implemented,” she pointed out. Though there are remote areas where connectivity is poor, there is a digital divide that exists, there are people who are unaware of the benefits of the government but to reach out to address the sheer numbers and this scale of implementation of any corrective measure is itself a major challenge, she added.

Looking at the statistics for fiscal 2016, 2018, and 2020, the number of admissions in public schools has witnessed a decline when compared with the admissions in private schools. The major reasons reflecting the downward trend spotted by the parents were – the overall quality of education and the quality of pedagogical methods used for delivering pre-primary education at nascent stages. On the contrary, the factors that back the upward trend of admission in private schools are – focus on the quality of education and learning; and focus on a child’s holistic development and the provision of better facilities. Another trend observed was the increasing number of enrollments in secondary and senior secondary grades.

Speaking of the fundamental and digital challenges that the government or public schools face, Dr Tomar mentioned:

• Rote learning methods of teaching create gaps in curriculum expectation and current learning.

• Lack of system or processes to identify and help children who are not making adequate progress in the early grades.

• Lack of properly trained and skilled teachers.

• Lack of accountability of teachers and school authorities.

• Limited internet penetration and poor connectivity.

• Vernacular interface to operate the digital content.

• Limited digital literacy among the teachers.

• Presence of only basic infrastructural support in government schools.

• Co-ordinated planning and implementation supporting digital intervention in the nascent stage

The role of NEP: Calling the National Education Policy 2020 (NEP 2020) a big step towards reshaping the future of school education in the country, she said, “The NEP 2020 has given the impetus to the use of technology in education and named digital tools as key enablers in meeting learning objectives and supporting fundamental challenges.”

In the previous year, the Government of India brought out the NEP 2020 which focuses on the extensive use of technology in teaching and learning, removing language barriers, increasing access for students, and educational planning and management. This clearly highlights that the future of education in India is going to be digital-driven and enabled by technology, she added.

Impact of pandemic: Addressing the impact of the COVID pandemic on schools and students, she highlighted that the pandemic has adversely affected not only the Indian school education system but the lives of students, and their physical, emotional, and social development. In addition, the pandemic also impacted the administration affecting the payroll system, mid-day meal scheme, monitoring and capacity building, shutting down of schools, and more.

However, the silver lining in this crisis situation was that State governments like the Government of Haryana came up with innovative interventions to ensure continuity of education. From initiatives like satellite streaming and digital classrooms to e-content repositories or e-learning portals, the state government has been proactive in taking technology-led initiatives and transforming the education system.

The way forward: A well-thought and structured approach has ignited the possibilities of overcoming the gaps and challenges. However, there is still a long way to go to make it mainstream and impactful. Dr Tomar, while citing the example of Singapore, said that the South Asian country adopted a systematic and systemic approach to the introduction and adoption of technology for teaching and learning to combat gaps and was better positioned to tackle the pandemic crisis.

“Singapore started technology-enabled education and digital learning practices way back in 1997. They’re still developing on the approach and growing better by the day. Taking this in consideration, we need to have a master plan when it comes to the way forward for the digital transformation of education in India. We need to pivot to areas where we are not leveraging technology and develop on those to match the global pace of development and overcome the pandemic crisis,” she concluded.

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