digitalLEARNING-Jan-2011-[60-62]-Intel Education Initiative in India

case study

Intel Education Initiative in India

As a global technology leader, Intel is committed to enhancing lives by accelerating access to uncompromised technology for everyone, anywhere in the world. The Intel Education Initiative aims to inspire future innovators to help drive sustainable growth and development of knowledge economies

By Intel Education Initiative

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he Intel Education Initiative aims to inspire future innovators to help drive sustainable growth and development of knowledge economies. Through this initiative, Intel gets directly involved in education programmes, advocacy, and technology access to prepare the next generation with skill requirements of the 21st Century workplace.

“Our experience around the world and in India has shown that there are two key factors for helping support education transformation - a strong systemic approach, and working closely with the ecosystem partners and stakeholders,” says Anjan Ghosh, Regional Direc-

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tor Corporate Affairs- Asia Pacific.

“Encouraged by the long term impact of Intel’s education programmes in India, we will continue to strengthen our collaboration with the government, social organisations and NGOs to help further support systemic improvements in the education system across areas such as education policy, teacher professional development, curriculum reforms, assessment practices as well as research and ICT infrastructure. Recently, Intel partnered with UNESCO to launch an ICT in Education Policy Toolkit at a National Forum in December 2010. The toolkit aims to help state-level policy makers, planners and implementers in

designing state specific policies to support education transformation. ” “In 2011 and beyond, catalysing education transformation with our ecosystem partners and our programmes will continue to be a focus area for us,” emphasises Ghosh.

Intel has partnered with governments, local NGOs and academic institutions through a variety of programmes including Intel Teach, Intel Learn, skoool, Intel Higher Education, the Initiative for Research and Innovation in Science (IRIS), Intel Community Outreach, and Voluntary Matching Grant Programmes to make a significant difference not just to the lives of the teachers and children

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The Intel Teach Programme is a worldwide initiative which helps teachers to be more effective educators by training them on how to promote problem solving, critical thinking and collaboration skills among their students as well as how to effectively integrate technology into their lessons they have touched, but also to the families and the communities they live in.

The Intel Teach Programme is a worldwide initiative which helps teachers to be more effective educators by training them on how to promote problem solving, critical thinking and collaboration skills among their students as well as how to effectively integrate technology into their lessons. Intel Teach has impacted more than 14 lakh teachers, teacher educators and student teachers across all states in India. Intel also expanded to the traditionally underserved North-Eastern states of the country.

The Intel Learn Programme is a community-based programme designed to help learners (8-16 years) develop 21st century skills (technological literacy, critical thinking, problem solving, and collaboration). Launched in 2004 in India , till date, the Programme has impacted 1,40,000 learners.

The Initiative for Research & Innovation in Science (IRIS) promotes and nurtures science and scientific research

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amongst young Indian innovators. The IRIS programme is executed in partnership with Department of Science and Technology, Government of India and CII. IRIS has impacted lakhs of students through workshops across India.

The Intel Higher Education Programme brings cutting-edge technology expertise to universities, encourages students to pursue technical degrees, and helps move technology out of university labs and into local communities. In India, over 20000 students from over 300 institutes have benefited from courses on Multicore, VLSI design and Mask Design.

Impact Study Government Upper Primary School, Meeranagar, Chittorgarh, Rajasthan At the young age of twelve, Shalini scurries from one house to another to help her mother, who works as domestic help, with mopping and washing utensils. Shalini realised that while she had learned in school that potable water was a valuable resource, many people in her community did not understand its importance. She was determined to talk to her teacher to try to find a way to make people understand its value.

Shalini’s teacher, Mrs Archana Tripathi, as an Intel trained Master Trainer of the Intel Teach Programme, realised the potential of the issue as an opportunity to use project based learning methodology to teach her students and address a very important social concern.

The data compiled by students after the survey gave a very alarming picture on how casually water is wasted by those who can afford it. The students decided to organise rallies to sensitise the community about the importance of conserving water. Mrs Tripathi wanted her students to get hands on experience on the project and to handle it as an important social issue. To understand the significance of wasting potable water, Mrs Tripathi organised a visit to the local water works to allow students to see and understand the purification process. The students had one unanimous response “If it takes so much effort to make water pure, why do people waste

it?” Their minds sparked as they decided to share what they had learned about wastage of water with their community.

“This is the first time that a Government school teacher has taken an initiative to make students understand the process of purification of water. It was heartening to see the interest of students,” said the Executive Engineer at Water Works Department, Chittorgarh.

Armed with brochures that they created, the students took out rallies in their neighborhood. They sat with mothers and grandmothers and had tea with the grandfathers on ‘charpoys’ kept outside houses, patiently explaining how water was being wasted and how it could be avoided.

Mrs Archana Tripathi put her training on the Intel Teach Program to further use and decided to use technology to reach out to the masses. Along with her students, she organised a well researched case study using the Internet and approached ‘Akashwani Chiitorgarh’ to share the case study with the community. This was an entirely innovative and new experience for the whole class. Three of the girls from school, including Shalini, shared their views on water conservation and also answered questions from listeners via telephone. They provided a real picture of the wastage and gave suggestions on how it could be avoided. They had a practical experience on how to deal with a problem and had also managed to reach out to large numbers in the community.

The efforts of the students of Government Upper Primary School, Meeranagar and of their teacher, Mrs. Archana Tripathi have drawn adulation from all over the state. Sarva Shiksha Abhiyan officials from Jaipur and Chittorgarh district applauded the efforts of Mrs Archana Tripathi at the successful implementation of an innovative approach to education which has given a new dimension to the learning process.

She has helped in the student’s scholastic as well as co-scholastic development and also imbibed in the students’ life skills which are very important for their holistic development. \\