Diverse Paths...One Goal- ICT in Education in India : October 2006 Issue

The monthly publication on ICT and Education for Asia and the Middle East

Volume II Issue 10 October 2006

ISSN 0973-4139

www.digitalLEARNING.in

Diverse Paths... One Goal ICT in Education in India

Because Policy is Judged

by Results, not Intentions PAGE 6

ICT Integration in Tanzania’s Secondary Education Policy PAGE 29

Digital Learning India 2006 explores If ICT in education policy, pedagogically aligned content and teacher motivation the answer to the challenges

‘Integrate Lessons from Pilots into Policy Making’ L K Atheeq, State Project Director, Sarva Shiksha Abhiyan, Karnataka, India PAGE 42 FORTHCOMING CSDMS EVENT

eASiA

Opportunities for Digital Asia

6-8 February 2007 Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia

School Score Card: A Performance Monitoring System for Schools PAGE 32

Contents

Verbatim

Volume II Issue 10, October 2006

To be able to be caught up into the world of thought – that is to be educated.

Edith Hamilton In times of change, learners inherit the earth, while the learned find themselves beautifully equipped to deal with a world that no longer exists.

Eric Hoffer All who have mediated on the art of governing mankind have been convinced that the fate of empires depends on the education of youth.

Aristotle These days people seek knowledge, not wisdom. Knowledge is the past, wisdom is the future.

Vernon Cooper

Commentary

6

Because Policy is Judged

by Results, not Intentions

Perspective

32

Dr Utpal Mallik

Cover Story

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Digital Learning India 2006 Building Community of Practitioners in ICT in Education Rumi Mallick & Manjushree Reddy

School Score Card A Performance Monitoring System for Schools in India M G Bala Prasanna

India Statescan

42 Karnataka Integrate Lessons from Pilots into Policy Making Interview with L K Atheeq, State Project Director, SSA, India

School Track

36

ICT and St. Mary’s School, India Annie Koshi

Catalysing Action Integration in 29 ICT Tanzania’s Secondary Education Policy Nils Jensen

News

27 35 40 44

News India News Asia News Corporate News World

23 Opportunities for Digital Asia 6-8 February 2007 Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia

*Cover photo: Khaitan Public School, Noida, India

46

Mark Your Calendar

Photograph by Rumi Mallick

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digital LEARNING invites authors We invite editorial contributions from our readers in the field of Digital Learning.

While no guarantee is made or implied, we will make every effort to incorporate all views and experiences in the relevant issues so as to better serve the ICT and Education community at large.

Please be sure to read and follow the Editorial Guidelines above. Note that contributions may be edited for space and/or clarity. Unsolicited manuscripts and artwork will not be returned.

Editorial guidelines Digital Learning contains articles and features on the theme of “ICT and Education” and related issues. Authors are requested to follow the following guidelines while sending their articles to Digital Learning. a. Articles should not exceed 2,000 words. For book/ website/ conference reviews, the word limit is 1000. Longer articles will be considered only in exceptional cases. b. Articles/ reviews can be sent through email as an attachment or through post, typed in Times New Roman, 10 point. c. Relevant figures/ tables/ photographs should be sent. Hard copies of submitted photographs should be of high quality in a recommended size of 5 inches by 7 inches. Soft copies of imagery should be scanned at 300dpi at a minimum width of 4 inches. d. Passport size photographs and brief biodata of the author(s) must be enclosed with the article. e. For bookshelf contributions, please mention the title, name of the author/s, publisher/s, year of publication, price, number of pages and a high quality photograph of the cover. Books on Digital Learning related themes published from the year 2000 onwards are preferable. f. We are keen to cover conference/ workshop/ seminar reviews. Please mention the theme, venue, date, and name of the organiser, if you are reporting about an event. Please send photographs of the conference/workshop/ seminar. The conference held in the past two months of the forthcoming issue will be preferred. g. The Editor reserves the right to reject, edit and adjust articles in order to conform to the magazine’s format.

All correspondence should be addressed to: The Editor, Digital Learning G-4, Sector-39, Noida, India Tel +91-120-2502180 to 87 Fax +91-120-2500060 Email info@digitalLEARNING.in

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October 2006 | www.digitalLEARNING.in

Editorial digital LEARNING Volume II, issue 10 | October 2006 President M P Narayanan Editor Ravi Gupta Editorial Consultant Jayalakshmi Chittoor Sr. Assistant Editor Rumi Mallick Sr. Research Associate Manjushree Reddy Designed by Bishwajeet Kumar Singh Web Zia Salahuddin, Ramakant Sahu Editorial and marketing correspondence digital LEARNING G-4 Sector 39 NOIDA 201301, India Phone +91 120 2502181-87 Fax +91 120 2500060 Email info@digitalLEARNING.in Group directors Maneesh Prasad, Sanjay Kumar Printed by Yashi Media Works Pvt Ltd New Delhi, India digital LEARNING does not neccesarily subscribe to the views expressed in this publication. All views expressed in the magazine are those of the contributors. digital LEARNING is not responsible or accountable for any loss incurred, directly or indirectly as a result of the information provided. digital LEARNING is published in technical collaboration with GIS Development (www.GISdevelopment.net)

Collaboration and networking promotes critical thinking!

Critical thinking is the intellectually disciplined process of actively and skillfully conceptualizing, applying, analyzing, synthesizing, and/or evaluating information gathered from, or generated by, observation, experience, reflection, reasoning, or communication, as a guide to belief and action.

Professor Grayson H. Walker of the University of Tennessee at Chattanooga explains the strategy applied there to promote critical thinking is through the conference mode.

This promotes inquiry, sharing, interaction, and reflection on one’s own work and helps improve the critical thinking.

This resonates well with Centre for Science, Development and Media Studies’ objective of bringing practitioners face-to-face in events such as the recently held triple conferences in Delhi, of which the Digital Learning India 2006 was an important conference. Bringing together communities of practice in one platform, be it policy makers, school leaders, programme implementers, NGOs, private sector, development agencies or the individual researchers, to facilitate critical thinking.

We are pleased to dedicate the October issue of Digital Learning magazine to report to you the process and the key discussion points that emerged at the conference. As always, making online and offline content available to practitioners in a concise form enables leaders, especially policy makers to draw the lessons and identify key recommendations for follow-up. Scaling up and the challenges that confront programmes initiated in a national scale draw most attention. Any programme to succeed must be vetted by the different stakeholders. What better opportunity than a face-to-face forum of the communities of practice as facilitated by the Digital Learning team?

The conference provided the perfect forum for sharing experiences, exchanging good practices and taking stock of the added value of using ICT in education and training, especially in the school sector. The discussions, workshops, and panel presentations made by experts and practitioners to share their views freely, while also taking feedback and lessons for improving their own projects, and providing networking opportunities to build new alliances made this conference a truly memorable one for over 700 participants.

Digital Learning promises to build and nurture these communities at the national and Asian level, while making sure to invite international agencies and experts from the world over in upcoming annual events.

We hope you enjoy this copy as much as we enjoyed putting this issue together.

Ravi Gupta Editor Ravi.Gupta@csdms.in

© Centre for Science, Development and Media Studies 2006

Digital Learning | Vol 2 Issue 10 October 2006

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Commentary Dr Utpal Mallik [UTPAL.MALLIK@GMAIL.COM] National Council for Educational Research and Training (NCERT), India

Because Policy is Judged by Results, not Intentions

I

n the use of ICTs in school education, there is a clear pattern across a large number of developing countries. Primary and secondary data from these countries give no indication that effective interactions between policies and practices are very common. The impact of ICT use on learning outcomes is still unclear, and is open to debate. But ICTs are being increasingly used in education, even in difficult circumstances. And ‘scaling up’ of those initiatives is common. But the models for scaling up are varied and few of them are based on monitoring and evaluation data. The best practices and lessons learnt from them are rarely recorded for policy analysis. The rhetoric and rationale for using ICTs focus on the potential of the technology for bringing about changes in the teaching-learning paradigm. In practice, ICT-uses in schools are, at best, add-on activities that have little consequence on teaching-learning.

Prevalent ICT uses do not help classroom practices adopt new technology tools. By and large, ICT efforts are restricted to procurement of equipment and getting connectivity for school computer labs. In other words, building infrastructure is the primary activity, when it is not the only activity.

This does not transform teachinglearning into an engaging and active process connected to real life nor does it prepare young people for tomorrow’s workplace. This general picture in nearly a hundred countries (India not included) makes a strong case for a feedback mechanism for mutual adjustments between the policy and practices everywhere.

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Digital Learning has initiated discussion on ‘ICT in Education Policy’ in the month of September 2006, which stimulated a number of views, voices and visions from all parts of the globe. Catching up the same thread, Dr Utpal Mallik, the Head of Department of Computer Education in NCERT, shares his views.

Look outside the school boundary. At the turn of the new millennium, there were 113 million out of school children throughout the world. Out of them, 110 million were from developing countries. One hundred fifty million did not complete the primary school. ICT offered them

little. Yet, the expectation is still very high. “We recognise that while ICT may be a luxury for the rich, for us, the poor countries, it is a vital and essential tool for fighting poverty and ensuring our survival”, says Prime Minister Meles Zenawi of Ethiopia (2005). Kofi Annan appeals, “we must October 2006 | www.digitalLEARNING.in

ensure that information and communication technologies are used to unlock the door to education” (2005). In the context of developing countries, these expectations can be translated into tangible outcomes, like increase in the access to education through distance learning, integration of the technology into the educational processes to meet larger goals, rather than using it in isolation or as something nailed onto the education system.

Enabling a knowledge network for school goers, training of teachers, increasing availability of quality education materials, enhancing the efficiency and effectiveness of educational administration there are many ways to enhance educational opportunities and enrich learning experiences using the technology.

not into technology. A punitive management structure to use monitoring and evaluation to criticise performance of implementing agencies may be avoided.

Findings are to be disseminated, aggressively, if needed, to influence the policy.

If this can’t be done, the policy will continue to be re-packaged and re-sold.

In India, two significant documents linked education and technology. One was the National Policy on Education (1986) and its If policy advice related to ICT use in Programme of Action and the other, the Information education is to be realistic, it needs to be Technology Action Plan (1998) and its promotional backed up by a rich database of lessons campaign, Operation learnt. It is important that monitoring and Knowledge. The Policy was tentative on the evaluation of all efforts are undertaken, computer’s role in education. The Plan was involving all stakeholders, including students The question of priority is comprehensive, if not vital. Back home, Shastri realistic. Among many Bhawan’s advice to the other recommendations, it of education in these parts of the Planning Commission (July 2006), set targets for expansion of IT-uses in world. The expectation that computers asking the latter to plan for universal education. Few of those targets have can solve what is wrong with secondary education and forget a been achieved. Not withstanding the education adds to the danger. laptop for every child, was based on a Plan, the relevant components in the singular decision of the Human Policy have not changed since 1992, If policy advice related to ICT use in Resource Development Ministry. when it was last revised. education is to be realistic, it needs to be backed up by a rich database of There is one inherent danger in Meanwhile, the technology has lessons learnt. So it is important that technology integration in the undergone radical metamorphosis. monitoring and evaluation of all education system. Just as The education system’s readiness to efforts are undertaken, involving all outdated medicines are no longer derive benefit from the increasing stakeholders – including students. effective and yet they find their way power of the technology has been The focus should be on the into health care systems in the limited. Only a dynamic relationship educational processes, for looking third world, past due ICT tools and between the policy and practices can into the technology’s role in methodologies may be recycled for expand that limit. education; is looking into education, use in the developing countries. As the growth in ICT markets slows in The author, Utpal Mallik is a Professor and Head, Department of Computer the developed world, materials and Education and also the acting Joint Director of the Central Institute of methods that didn’t work there may Educational Technology, both National Council for Educational Research and well be exported to education markets Training (NCERT), India. Utpal Mallik is one of those few who started in developing countries, whether or computers in Indian schools in the early eighties. not those are relevant to the problems Digital Learning | Vol 2 Issue 10 October 2006

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Cover Story

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October 2006 | www.digitalLEARNING.in

Digital Learning India 2006 Building Community of Practitioners in ICT in Education Integrating technologies in education involves comprehensive and coherent frameworks, policies and processes, which can determine why and how technology should be utilised in education.

While India has moved ahead of many of its Asian neighbours in its IT workforce, the basic issues of quality, equity and access to education still remain unresolved.

Where technology has succeeded in influencing the education outreach and quality, supporting processes and frameworks that can sustain such efforts have not emerged. A lack of adequate knowledge sharing among key stakeholders and community of practitioners has also delayed the process of using technologies as enablers of learning. Rumi Mallick and Manjushree Reddy of Digital Learning India 2006 conference takes stock of ICT in Education in India.

Inauguration of the event with lighting of the lamp

M V Rajashekharan, Minister of State for Planning, GoI, Dr M P Narayanan, President, Digital Learning | VolCSDMS 2 Issue 10 October 2006

The Digital Learning India 2006 conference and Exhibition was held in conjunction with egov India 2006 and Indian Telecentre Forum, from 23-25 August at Hotel Taj Place, New Delhi India. Organised by the Centre for Science, Development and Media Studies (CSDMS), India, the threeday events saw over 350 speakers and over 700 participants including key decision-makers from government, industry leaders, practitioners and academicians from India and abroad.

The triple conferences and exhibition were co-organised by Ministry of Communication and Information Technology, Government of India and UNDP. Several national and international organisations like SDC, UNESCO, USAID, GeSCI, SIDA, Telecentre.org, Bellanet, SEAMEO and others supported the conference.

Several corporate leaders, international organisations and government departments were represented both in the programme and at the exhibition space.

The Digital Learning India 2006 conference aimed to take stock of the progress made by India in using technologies as the enabler of education. The conference had also aimed to deliberate on the enabling infrastructure and policies and challenges of resources, and identify the critical success factors that build and sustain initiatives in ICT in education.

S C Khuntia, Joint Secretary, MHRD, GoI

The inauguration was graced by Jainder Singh, Secretary, Department of IT, Government of India, Dr Maxine Olson, UNDP Resident Representative and UN Resident Coordinator to India, M S Swaminathan, Chairmam, MS Swaminathan Research Foundation (MSSRF), Kiran Karnik, President, NASSCOM, Kraisorn Pornsutee, Permanent Secretary, Ministry of Information and Communication Technology, Royal Thai Government and Dr M P Narayanan, President, CSDMS. The Digital Learning India 2006 conference, included focussed panel discussions, workshops and sessions providing an unique opportunity for participants to share knowledge, information news, views and network with peers and experts from the country as well as with other international stakeholders.

The main conference agenda was formulated with guidance from the Conference Advisory Board included experts and decision-makers from around the world. The conference included two plenary and fourteen parallel sessions spread over three days. The conference agenda covered all the key areas addressing the key concerns of ICT in education in developing countries and deliberated on strategies for effective integration.

R Chandrashekhar, Addl. Secretary, MCIT, GoI, Dorothy Gordon, Kofi Annan Centre for Excellence in IT, Kiran9 Karnik, NASSCOM

Dr Edilberto de Jesus, Director, SEAMEO Secretariat, Thailand

(From left to right): Dorothy Gordon, Kofi Annan Centre for Excellence in IT, Dr Edilberto de Jesus, SEAMEO, Keshav Desiraju (Chairperson), MHRD, GoI, Minja Yang, Unesco-India, Yin Cheong CHENG, APERA, Col. K J Singh, Designmate

Learning from international experience, exploring the need for ICT in Education policy, understanding the technology and learning perspective... Day One The first Plenary session of the day was on ‘International perspectives in ICT in Education’. The session aimed at understanding the activities of leading international organisations in bridging the digital divide in education. This session, which was chaired by Keshav Desiraju, Joint Secretary of the Ministry of Human Resource Development, Government of India, saw five key speakers from Thailand, India, Ghana and Hong Kong.

Dr Edilberto de Jesus, Director, SEAMEO Secretariat, Thailand explained that the SEAMEO or the South-east Asian Ministers’ of Education Organisation, works at the regional level between twelve countries in Asia to carry out specialized research and training in areas of education, agriculture, health, and innovations. He explained that SEAMEO centres use ICTs to share and disseminate knowledge to promote regional cooperation and network building in research and education. Dorothy K Gordon, Founder-Director General , Kofi Annan Centre for Excellence in IT, Ghana, insisted that while experimenting with new media, it is 10

necessary to work in a team with educators, with psychologists, with the whole range of people, especially for developing the right pedagogy for using new media in education and capacity building.

She elaborated from her work at the Kofi Annan Centre which focuses on capacity building of IT professionals.

Minja Yang, Director and Representative, UNESCO-India explained the focus of work of UNESCO in India, in mainstreaming radio as a means of education and is trying to fill the missing link between teachers, students and the parents in terms of the kind of research and learning tools available for each.

UNESCO is collaborating with organisations like National Centre for Education Research and Training (NCERT), NEIPA and National Institute on Open Schooling (NIOS) in India to develop education kits, lifekits for school students and teachers and also reach out to the neo literates and even those who are out of school.

Yin Cheong CHENG, Director, AsiaPacific Educational Research Association (APERA), Hong Kong Institute of Education, in his

“The issue of concern is not digital divide, but the education divide, because many of these (Asian) countries still face the problem of reaching the ‘education for all’ target and the Millennium Development Goals. For some years now, issues have been under intense discussion. What we are also looking at is the ‘massification’ of higher education, i.e how to make higher education more accessible and affordable for the masses.

Although the issue of ‘massification’ of higher education is driven by many forces in developing countries, using of ICTs, say for distance education can be one very important way to make higher education opportunities available and affordable to the masses. ” Dorothy Gordon, Founder-Director General, Kofi Annan Centre for Excellence in IT, Ghana “We need research.

We cannot make assumption on what works best when we are using new media.

The problem is innovation really requires innovative people to create it...all of us are victims of an education system, which emphasises our ability to assimilate facts and then exaggerate these facts as key points in our educational career. …In an US lecture I was told that after 30 years of teaching computer science, the only research that has been conclusive in terms of how you create an IT professional or a computer science garaduate is that you have to encourage peer learning and people have to work in teams to have more effectivity.”

Minja Yang, Director and Representative, UNESCO-India “I’m amazed by the number of ICT related conferences being organized in India. This justifies the related significance of ICTs. For e-Learning, learning is the critical issue, ‘e’ is the modality.

Because we are more enthusiastic about e, we are putting it before learning. UNESCO is instrumental in availing the digital learning opportunities to reach the un-reached in education and learning.”

October 2006 | www.digitalLEARNING.in

presentation titled ‘Paradigm Shifts in Learning & Integration of ICT in Education’ explained the three major concerns in Educational Reformeffectiveness in teaching and learning, quality of education to meet the multiple and diverse needs in the society, and relevance to the future in an era of IT and globalization. CHENG elaborated an unique concept of ‘triplization’ of learning that comprises of globalisation, localisation, and individualisation.

Col K J Singh, of Designmate, India, a leading producer of digital content for schools outlined some major challenges of ICT-enabled education in India namely infrastructure, connectivity, accessibility, localisation of content.

Col Singh elaborated how effective multimedia content that is pedagogically linked can revolunalise the education process and classroom learning in schools.

(From left to right): M G Bala Prasanna, CGG, India, Ashish Duggal, Gilat, Dr G Narendra Kumar (Chairperson), Government of NCT, India, Gaurav Bhatnagar, Educomp and Victor Lyon, Tara Akshar

have discussed, Desiraju pointed out that for developing countries and especially India, ‘massification’ bringing services and opportunity to the masses, pedagogically aligned content that addresses the diversity of users and learners,

Keshav Desiraju, Joint Secretary of the Ministry of Human Resource Development, Government of India “I’m never tired of saying it especially in forums like this- we are a country of huge divides. Most important is that we need to see to it that in our endeavours we do not end up in a situation where technology application in general or the ICT in particular, worsens is the divide. When people talk about ICTs, it should not be something that is of use in fancy schools. Working with the Ministry of HRD we are concerned primarily with government schools-schools that depend on public money, whose teachers are paid from public fund. That really is the challenge-to explore ICTs for government schools… the ultimate goal is the free exchange of knowledge. Anything that can facilitate free exchange of knowledge, anything that makes this process easier and more useful, anything which enables that process of teaching to be long-lasting is clearly what we need to work on. But let’s not forget that this is a tool like any other.”

Keshav Desiraju, Joint Secretary, Ministry of Human Resource Development, Government of India explained that the most important consideration is numbers, whether it is a matter of pedagogy, content technology application, everything has to be looked at in a huge scale.

There are huge number of children who remain out of school, the potential of ICTs has to be explored in reaching out to these out-of-school students, who do not have any fixed time to study but are still very valuable resources of this country.

Drawing from what the four speakers Digital Learning | Vol 2 Issue 10 October 2006

and the seamless movement from upwards from relevance to effectiveness to quality in education are critical issues that need to be addressed.

The session on ‘e-Learning : The Technology and Learning perspective’ was chaired by Dr G Narendra Kumar, IT Secretary, Government of National Capital Territory of Delhi. Gaurav Bhatnagar, Senior Vice President, Educomp India introduced ‘Mathsguru’ that helps students with their maths problems. The

development systems allows teachers to write and explain and also record and compress files. Ashish Duggal, Director Marketing, Gilat Networking Systems explained the potential and importance of VSAT networks in rural and remote areas.

M G Bala Prasanna, Project Manager, Centre for Good Governance, explained a performance monitoring system - ‘School Score Card’ that uses five parametres to analyse the school performance namely enrollment ratio, pupil attendance, performance of students, availability of teachers, infrastructure facilities. Victor Lyon of Tara Akshar shared his experience in ICT-enabled literacy programme in rural areas.

The panel discussion on ‘Framework for ICT in education policy’ was led by the Global eSchools and Communities Initiative (GeSCI), Dublin. This session was chaired by Subhash C Khuntia, Joint Secretary, Ministry of Human Resource Development, Government of India.

Dr Ashish Garg, India Coordinator, GeSCI, moderated the session. The aim of this session was to deliberate on the systematic approaches required, the efficacy of a policy to systemically integrate ICTs in education and the components of such a policy. Dr Patti Swarts, Education Strategist, GeSCI in her presentation deliberated on the need for an ICT in Education policy.

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Dr Patti Swarts, Education Strategist, GeSCI “What is the end-toend system that I’ve been talking about?

It encompasses looking at the educational objectives which should drive the technology integration into the education system, it encompasses the key players, the key actors and it looks at what resources are needed, the funding. All of these together need to give consideration to the deployment of ICT platform…. One need to go back and review the system to see whether the methodologies would be appropriate for the new technologies...”

Alfred Ilukena, Under Secretary, Formal Education, Ministry of Education, Government of Namibia “In a policy and implementation plan…we might need to look at availing wireless facilities, or to resolve the power problem by putting the solar panels in order to bring technology to that area. But we also need to look at the curriculum development as a critical component, then content development, school management …issue of maintenance …the maintenance policy and technical support has to be very clear… a breakdown of maintenance leads to frustration which becomes a hindrance... so the monitoring and evaluation mechanisms are developed to monitor the whole mechanism that is developed.”

Vivek Bharadwaj Director, Ministry of Human Resource Development, Government of India

“Education technology in the policy (India) already has a separate section; what is needed now is to make a comprehensive policy. The government believes in one policy document in education, to have a holistic approach and not fragmented into health education, population education, etc.

So its time now for the civil society and the government to come together and set up a working group, study the policy initiatives in different countries, prepare the draft, discuss and then come to a conclusion.”

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Dr Swarts explained that GeSCI is an UNICT taskforce founded organisation and its vision to catalyse partner and support with national and regional e-schools initiatives. While setting the stage for the need for ICT in education policy, she pointed out that there is a non-focus on education objectives while speaking on ICT in education and a lack of a comprehensive system that considers all the elements of end-to-end system i.e. a comprehensive approach.

Alfred Ilukena, Under Secretary, Formal Education, Ministry of Education, Government of Namibia shared how Namibia drafted its most successful ICT in education policy and developed the framework for implementation.

Stating the case for Namibia, Ilukena pointed out that if the goals were clearly identified then everything that was to be done in the implementation process of ICTs will have to be benchmarked against these goals with the government playing the role of the facilitator, providing leadership and guidance, and controlling the quality.

While Dr K K Gupta, Joint DirectorIT, Dept of Education, Government of Rajasthan shared his experience on the Rajasthan Education Initiative (REI) and its path breaking work in mobilising public-private partnership to improve education through use of ICTs,Vivek Bharadwaj, Director, Ministry of Human Resource Development, Government of India, one of the key planners of the ‘ICT in school’ programme of the Ministry,

Dr Ashish Garg India Coordinator, GeSCI

explained that the government realises that there is more to education technology than just computers.

However a policy is required to help us determine options, otherwise there is confusion.

Subhash Khuntia, Joint Secretary, Ministry of Human Resource Development, Government of India “The (ICT in Education) policy document needs to be dynamic, should constantly keep on changing and if it’s a new sector, the frequency of change could be more. At the same time, it must provide a direction and guideline for various components in the sector. It should address the inequities in the system, the digital divide that exists, between the rich and poor, educated and uneducated, urban and rural.

That is why the policy document should evolve through a consultative process in various sectors in the government and also in civil society, and both public and private sectors need to be involved. Prioritisation is something, which is very necessary in a policy document, as these are tied with limitations like financial availabilities.”

Subhash Khuntia, Joint Secretary, Ministry of Human Resource Development, Government of India, who chaired the session pointed out that although India does not have a document as “Policy on ICT in education”, it is not working in a policy vacuum; there are several documents, be it the education policy or the IT policy, where ICTs for education has been has talked of.

The joint secretary, drawing examples from the ‘ICT in school’ programme, emphasised that the country is moving in the right direction in ICT in education. Since the numbers are large- schools and students wise, it will take some time before adequate systems are built and a clear policy emerges.

However, whatever policy is framed or emerges, it has to be flexible and dynamic enough to incorporate the changes that would be deemed necessary from time to time.

October 2006 | www.digitalLEARNING.in

Partnerships for technologies in schools, integrating e-Learning in classrooms, ICT for rural children, Government efforts under ‘education for all’ and integrating process, technology and capacity building... Day Two Second day of the conference saw two sessions running parallelly ‘Integrating technology into education-Digital Equaliser way’ led

by American India Foundation (AIF) and ‘ICT for children’ led by Plan International .

In the session , Integrating Technology into Education-Digital Equaliser way’ Shankar Venketeswaran, Executive Director, Chetan Kapoor and Sunder Krishnan, of AIF outlined the activities of AIF, which focuses on technology integration in underserved schools and empower, teachers to add value to quality teaching. Dr Isher Judge Ahluwaia, Vice-Chairperson, Planning Board, Punjab and Member, National Manufacturing Competitiveness Council, Government of India who presented the keynote in this session pointed out that ICT in education is placing the technology in reformed education system where government, the parent, the teacher and the student have to work together to bring this reform.

The session also saw a discussion between teachers and students from Government Railway school in Hyderabad and Akshya Pratishthan School Delhi. Conducted by Annie Koshi, Principal, St Mary’s school, Delhi, this interaction saw students sharing their views on whether computers have brought any change into their learning, and if computer education has helped the girls become more confident. The session saw an intense discussion on the teachers’ approach to teaching and to technology. The general line of thought was that computers serve best in teaching science and maths, social studies like geography, etc.

However teachers need to be selfmotivated and take a leadership in using ICTs for education.

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Dr Isher Judge Ahluwalia Vice-Chairperson, Planning Board, Punjab “This conference is about going deeper down into the building blocks of what gives us the human capital, what gives us the skills with which we can take on not just global competition but also build our own economy and society… We really need to bring the whole system together to see if we want education to be more relevant, to be more interesting and contemporary.”

(From left to right): J Shankar, Azim Premji Foundation, K Chandramouli, SSA, Andhra Pradesh, Manas Chakravorty (Chairperson), Hiwel, Ashutosh Chadda, Intel and Dr Poonam Batra, Delhi University

Student

Kiran Karnik, NASSCOM

K Chandramouli State Project Director, Andhra Pradesh, India “Building partnership is a great art and sustaining it and taking it to the logical end with a thumping success is really important... today we are proud, all key private sector leaders are coming forward to to partner with us. “

The panel discussion (also led by AIF) on ‘Technology in SchoolsBuilding Partnerships for Success’ discussed and debated the components and the processes of a successful partnership for ICT in education.

For Prof Dr Poonam Batra, Central Institute of Education, Delhi University, ICTs, to become a bridge between quantity and quality, teachers, parents and schools, have to work as partners and make the school a learning organisation.

Ashutosh Chadda, ManagerEducation, Intel, India pointed out that successful partnership has to be built around a vision to provide physical infrastructure like classrooms, people and processes, the curriculum and the content. K Chandramouli, State Project Director, Andhra Pradesh, shared his state’s experience in initiating computers in1000 school in partnership with IBM, Byrraju Foundation, Reddy Foundation, Nandi Foundation, Microsoft. J Shankar, Azim Premji Foundation, India emphasised that there should be a high level of interest amongst the partners and the partners have to believe in a common goal. He also pointed out that for a partnership to succeed, the partners must have a first hand experience of implementing projects and a clear strategy to deal with changes in government leadership. Manas Chakravorty, Head, Hole-in-the-wall-limited (HIWEL), moderated this session and summarised that partnerships with community are important for effective implementation and sustainability of an initiative.

This session also saw the Launch of a partnership between AIF and NASSCOM Foundation-through the Member Connect programme. Kiran Karnik, Trustee and President, NASSCOM elaborated the partnership and Rufina Fernandes, CEO, NASSCOM Foundation moderated the launch ceremony.

October 2006 | www.digitalLEARNING.in

The session on ‘ICT for children’ was led by Plan International. The aim of the session was to deliberate on the education technology options for rural areas and to develop a common understanding on potentials that ICT has for rural children. Randeep Kaur of Plan International moderated this session. Douglas Bell, Education Advisor, Education Development Centre (EDC) shared his experience in the programme ‘Technology Tools for Teachers and Training’ (T4). He pointed out that high quality pedagogy is at the centre of the programme. Karnaram Punar, from

Randeep Kaur, Plan Intl.

how open source powers local language computing for children.

Child becomes conceptually sound when he/she acquires knowledge through her/his mother tongue. The discussion in this session focussed around the various technology options available from satellite TV to community radio and programmes that help to develop life-skills of children.

It emerged from the discussion that although immense opportunities exist in using commu-nity radio for education, absence of a policy on a community radio and restriction on the use of frequency by the

schools across the country. Singh also explained the network’s plan for enabling smart schools in every state in India. Meena Bhatt, State Project Director of Sarva Shiksha Abhiyan (National initiative for Education for all), Gujarat, shared the state’s experience in computer-aided-learning (CAL) in schools. The programme developed under ‘Build Own Operate and Transfer’ (BOOT) model, had emphasised on teacher training, and capacity building and content development in the local language.

K J Lohe, State Project Director of Sarva Shiksha Abhiyan, Nagaland,

Chetan Kapoor, AIF

(From left to right): Douglas Bell, EDC, Sajan Venniyoor, Prasar Bharti, Randeep Kaur, Plan International, Dr Nilay Ranjan, One World South Asia, Priti Patil, CDAC and Vivek Bhardwaj, MHRD, GoI Sunder Krishnan, AIF

Karnaram Punar, Urmul

Urmul, a trust actively working in 110 villages across Western Rajasthan shared his experience in promoting writing skills and knowledge of ICTs among youths. The discussion that followed the presentation primarily focussed on the role of local government and local community participation in such initiatives.

The second part of the panel discussion on ICT in education saw Priti Patil, Centre for Development of Advanced Computing (CDAC), Mumbai, Sajan Venniyoor from Prasar Bharti, Douglas Bell, EDC and Vivek Bharadwaj from the Ministry of Human Resource development, Government of India and Dr Nilay Ranjan from One World South Asia. Priti Patil talked about Digital Learning | Vol 2 Issue 10 October 2006

community (other than research and education institutions) has hampered the use of this technology for education in rural areas.

The session on ‘Government supported initiatives in ICT for education’ was chaired by Dr K Subramaniam, Deputy Director General of National Informatics Centre (NIC), Government of India.

Dr Puranchand of National Institute of Open Schooling (NIOS) empasised that both formal and open education systems are required to meet the challenges. O N Singh, Commissioner, Navodaya Vidyalaya Samiti (NVS), a network of over 500 schools spread across India shared his experience in implementing computer-aided learning in the

pointed out the biggest concerns for the state in implementing ICT-enabled education is the lack of reliable and local language multimedia content and motivation and training among teachers to sustain a programme.

Dr Edilberto de Jesus, Director, SEAMEO, who co-chaired this session reiterated that integrating ICTs to the existing curriculum is the most challenging task.

Dr K Subramanium, while summarising the session recommended that learning materials needs to be developed keeping in view its absorption by different skill level, creating of local language content through local level participation and multiple delivery channels are good ways to make the education for all a reality.

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The panel discussion on ‘Challenges and opportunities of technology integration in classrooms’ was led by Educomp India. The panel discussion saw a balanced representation from the key stakeholders of ICT in education, funding organisation, digital content provider, experts who train teachers and educators, academician and school administrator.

The panellists included Manisha Solanki, Development Advisor, European Commission, India, Abhinav Dhar, Sr Vice President at Educomp India, Kalpana Kapoor, Principal, Delhi Public School, India, Indrajit Bhattacharya- Additional Director, DOEACC Society, Dr Morten Falch of the Danish Technological University, Satyajit Singh, Platform Solutions Manager for South East Asia, Emerging Market and Platform Group of Intel.

The panellist summarised that digital multimedia content in classrooms, if coupled with traditional tools used by teachers for teaching in schools, can lead to 100% utilisation of the brain capacity of learners; teachers plays a crucial role in e-Learning even if the focus is learner-centered learning; teachers role need to be well defined with respect to new pedagogy; blended learning model of e-learning with a focus on experience- based learning is effective for teachers training as well as adoption of e-learning in schools; the measure for technology utilisation in classroom should be how technology is being used –focusing on commitment, leadership, planning,

Meena Bhatt, State Project Director, Sarva Shiksha Abhiyan, Gujarat, India

O N Singh, Navodaya Vidyalaya Samiti, India

K J Lohe, State Project Director, Sarva Shiksha Abhiyan, Nagaland, India

and processes, and not just the frequency of use; alternative technologies like cell phone, MP3, etc. also need to be explored for classroom learning.

The session on ‘Framework of Process, Technology, Capacity Building’ for effective ICT in education interventions saw, Flor Hurtado , Instituto Latinoamericano de la Comunicación Educativa (ILCE), Mexico explaining the Enciclomedia about project that had aimed to establish a natural connection

(From left to right): Anil Jaggi, NIOS, Srikant Iyer, Edurite, Sonjib Mukherjee (Chairperson), Metalearn, Uday Singh Pawar, Microsoft Research, India and Vivek Agarwal, Liqvid

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between traditional forms of presentation of contents and curricula and the new generation of technology reaching 165,000 classrooms in 2006.

Tess Camba, Director, Commission on Information and Communications Technology, Philippines, who shared the ‘ischool’ initiative experience of partnership between government, private and non-government organisations. The process focussed on community mobilisation, training of teachers, deployment of equipment, and content development. Dr Zahid H Khan, Hony. Director, Centre for Information Technology, Jamia Milia University, explained the process of ‘Web-based Urdu Learning Through Hindi Medium’, which is the only course of this kind available in the country. The University’s next aim is to develop an Urdu Learning programme using rich multimedia that is accessible to all. This session was chaired by K J Singh, Director, Designmate. The discussion in this session primarily centred around the teachers response in the process of inducting ICT in education and taking on the ICT way of teaching.

The panellists pointed out that the awareness level and familiarisation of teachers to computers was crucial before they adopted the technology. K J Singh referred to Kiran Karnik’s remarks on the first day for the education sector–‘We are still stuck to the video filming mode’ and have not been able to bring the latest techniques which are available.

Flor Hurtado ILCE, Mexico

Tess Camba CICT Philippines

Dr Morten Falch Danish Technological University, Denmark

Abhinav Dhar Educomp India

October 2006 | www.digitalLEARNING.in

Leadership reflection in ICT integration in education, open The second part of this session technologies and resources for India; public private partnership was chaired by for education; government perspective on ICT’s for education Sonjib Mukherjee, CEO, Metalearn, and measurement and evaluation of e-Learning; localisation; and one of the leading large scale take up of e-Learning... Day Three content providers in the country. Vivek Agarwal, CEO, Liqvid, explained his champion adoption and digital The first session of the third day organisation’s initiatives in teaching resources availability have to be titled ‘Leadership reflection in ICT english to student. Uday Singh Pawar, assured. Shantanu Prakash, CEO, integration in education, technology, Researcher, Microsoft Research Educomp, one of the largest digital content and capacity building’ was India demonstrated Microsoft content producers of India pointed aimed at hearing from the market Research’s innovation on ‘Multiple out that any learning content leaders on how their efforts and Mice’ where a single computer can be produced for the classroom has to products have served the ICT in used by several students with several meet the requirements of the teachers education sector and their viewpoints mice thus enhancing students’ for delivering better education. on what works best for ICT in engagement and productivity of a education. This session was chaired computer. Srikanth B Iyer, President Capt KJS Brar, CEO, Designmate,

by Dorothy Gordon of Kofi Annan & COO, Edurite, emphasised that one of the leading educational Centre for Excellence in IT, Ghana. creativity in content is important and multimedia content producers of India, Nancy Knowlton, President and coEdutite is focusing on bottom-up explained that the effectiveness of any CEO, SMART Technologies shared development of content - from animation is when it engages the her experience in facilitating the use syllabus focussed on top-down restudents and makes learning interesof SMART’s interactive whiteboard in arrangement to fit different syllabi. ting and joyful. Prabish Chandran, schools and education institutions.

Anil Jaggi, ICT Consultant, National Director, Vidyatech has been involFor Knowlton, the key to successful School of Open Schooling (NIOS), ved in designing of instruction soluintegration of ICT in education is to India, explained the process of ‘On tions using 3D games, game engines, focus on leadership at the state, demand examination system’ of the etc. For Chandran an ideal content district and the school levels.

NIOS, an online examination system development strategy is when content Teachers need to be selected to which allows students to take is kept separate from technology. examinations at their own pace and Nancy Knowlton President and time. The twin session indicated that Dr Edilberto de Jesus of SEAMEO co-CEO, SMART although there was a felt need for a chaired the session on ‘Government comprehensive framework that perspectives on ICT in education’. “…Choose incorporated technology integration Dr K Subramanium, Deputy Director products that are relevent education content and General, National Informatic Centre both easy to start using and grows capacity building of educators for (NIC), India explained the challenges with a teacher’s ICT-enabled learning, there was still a and opportunities in education skills. Ensure lack of clarity on what should services under the GATT scenario. technology is always up and running, involve constitute this framework and Dr Sashibhushan of Indira Gandhi the students with assistance of the teacher. practitioners still focussed on National Open University (IGNOU) The product impacts on improving student engagement, improving motivation and addressing issues component by pointed out the challenges of attendance, supports different learning styles, component. inadequate bandwidth availability for improves review and retention, streamline teacher preparation”.

Shantanu Prakash CEO, Educomp, India

A session in progress

Digital Learning | Vol 2 Issue 10 October 2006

“It is the teacher in the classroom who lays down the rules.

So any content, which is meant to be inside the classroom, has to first speak to the teacher; it must meet the teachers’ needs for delivering better education outcomes”.

Session in an interactive and participatory mode

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Capt. K J S Brar, Designmate, India and Dorothy Gordon, Kofi Annan Centre for Excellence in IT, Ghana

Prabish Chandran Director, Vidyatech

CSDMS publications at display

‘We want to build contents that will continue even with the change of technology.

Content malleability is another goal- that is, how do we ensure that what we build for one technology can be easily used on another technology’.

delivery of online and distance education programmes. L K Atheeq, State Project Director, Sarva Shiksha Abhiyan, Karnataka, shared the issues and challenges of providing computer education and integrating ICT in primary schools, especially in rural areas. Dr Edilberto summarised and emphasised that India should invest in researching the pedagogy for ICT for education. He also expressed that, India needs to resolve its points of tensions; between technology and infrastructure; between what India sees as its national needs and the international opportunities; and between ICT education and ICT for education.

The aim of the session on ‘Open Technologies in Education in India’. was to understand MIT open courseware initiative and deliberate

on the potential and challenges of initiating it in India. Vijay Kumar, Assistant Provost, MIT, USA, who is also an advisor to the National Knowledge Commission of India, explained that For Prof Vijay Kumar, quality of open content, and creating quality enabled facilities are necessary for a very robust blended education model. The open content resources (OCW) of MIT have a very critical role to play for education in India. He elaborated the OCW components and also explained the iLabs initiative which provides access to virtual laboratories over the Internet and the Open Knowledge Initiative (OKI), which is a service oriented architecture that supports development of application, without having to create a core architecture every time. Prof Phillip Long of MIT, introduced the iCampus initiative in

collaboration with Microsoft Research. The initiative aims at finding new educational tools for active learning and web services as an underlying infrastructure and currently Birla Institute of Technology, Pilani in India has become one of these hubs. Prof Long also explained and demonstrated other related initiatives of MIT. The discussion by Prof Kumar and Prof Long indicated that there is immense potential of the various open learning and technology initiatives MIT for higher education in developing countries. However, there was a general lack of awareness among the institutions and students of about these various opportunities available. The discussion also revolved around how universities in India can initiate similar activities.

L K Atheeq State Project Director, Sarva Shiksha Abhiyan Karnataka “The biggest challenge is to scale-up the pilots, motivate the teachers to continue such programmes and provide adequate ICT infrastructure for schools.”

(From left to right); Dr K Subramaniam, NIC, Dr Shashi Bhushan, IGNOU, Dr Edilberto de Jesus, SEAMEO and L K Atheeq, SSA, Karnataka

“at the National Knowledge Commission of India we have been trying to show the value proposition of network enabled open education for increasing access and quality in education…the aim is to make India a leader in global knowledge economy. In order to meet these needs of national development as well as to be a key player, we really have to look at how we can provide quality. So the problem which the Commission addresses is of scaling excellence”.

Prof Vijay Kumar Assistant Provost, Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), USA

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Prof Phillip Long Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), USA

October 2006 | www.digitalLEARNING.in

While discussing the modalities of such initiatives Prof Kumar also cautioned the participants that quality and global standards have to be maintained if courses are to be put online and virtual labs have to be created. There was a general consensus that more effective collaborations are required to realize the full potential of such initiatives.

the Community Affairs Team, Microsoft India described the ‘Unlimited Potential program’ that focuses on improving lifelong learning for underserved individuals by providing technology skills. Nalini Gangadharan, Chairperson & Trustee Child and Police (CAP) pointed out that learning has to be linked with livelihoods; and partnerships are the best ways to grow and learn.

The session on Public Private Partnerships for ICT in Education was led by QUEST. Aakash Sethi, Executive Director, QUEST Alliance in his overview elaborated that QUEST- Quality Education and Skills Training Alliance is a partnership of public, private and non-governmental organizations working together to create, pilot and institutionalise technology tools for improving the quality of education at all levels in both formal and non-formal settings.

The International Youth Foundation (which is funded by USIAD) manages the QUEST secretariat and brokers relationships with all interested parties inside and outside the Alliance. Ujwal Thakkar, CEO, Pratham, a leading NGO that works in education, explained that the primary objective of such partnerships were to get skills and funding for critical new diversification on the continuum of the value chain. Anshuman Varma of

The discussion of the partners indicated that the QUEST partnership includes implementation partners primarily NGOs who may use the QUEST platform to implement some of their innovative programmes, resource partners like Microsoft and Lucent who use the platform to design programme and implement them and technical partners who provide technical support and expertise in programme execution, implementation, design. Nalini Gangadharan said ‘what brings us together in this Alliance is that education technology for the most deprived’. Sethi informed that as a part of the programme, a portal would be created which will serve as an information resource centre where all the experiments in ICT in education will be documented, along with initiatives under QUEST, so that organisations can benefit from this knowledge.

Digital Learning Innovation 2006 Award Innovation 2006 Award went to Seva Mandir in Udaipur, Rajasthan, India for their innovative ‘Camera School Programme’ to reduce teacher absenteeism in schools. Neelima Khetan, Chief Executive of Seva Mandir received the Award from Mani Shankar Aiyar, Union Minister of Panchayati Raj, Government of India.

Digital Learning recognised the innovative initiatives of this community, in realizing and unleashing the potentials of ICT, by introducing the ‘Innovation 2006’ Award. The Digital Learning Digital Learning | Vol 2 Issue 10 October 2006

Seva Mandir, a Non-Government Organization working in over 600 villages of Udaipur and Rajsamand districts of Rajasthan, conceived the Camera school experiment in 2003 with the help of Economists Esther

Madhu Ranjan Education Officer, USAID, India “One does not have to have a common cause for an alliance to work, one has to have a common commitment. We are all for children and youth accessing quality education for livelihood advancement. All of us bound by that but each one of us has our specific area of focus, each one of us has our own strengths and that is the beauty of this alliance.”

Aakash Sethi Executive Director QUEST “The QUESTalliance is looking for more interested people who want to leverage the platform and build partnership that is mutually beneficial.”

(From left to right); Doglas Bell, EDC, Anshuman Varma, Microsoft, Ujjawal Thakkar, Pratham, Nalini Gangadharan, CAP and Akash Sethi, QUEST

Duflo and Abhijit Banerjee, teaching at MIT and associated with the Poverty Action Lab, as a possible solution to reduce the teacher absenteeism. Cameras were provided to single-teacher schools run by Seva Mandir in Rajasthan’s Udaipur district, and these cameras have shown how to improve teacher attendance through direct monitoring.

The tamper-proof cameras record teacher attendance with the help of entry and exit hour snaps of the teachers in the school with the students. This simple but innovative use of technology has provided a way to reduce the critical problem of teacher truancy in schools, thereby taking a step forward to the universalisation of education.

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(From left to right); Vivek Bhardwaj, MHRD, Subhash Khuntia, MHRD, GoI, Manas Chakravorty, Hiwel and Sunder Krishnan, American India Foundation

The last plenary of the day was on ‘Measurement and evaluation of eLearning, localisation and large scale take-up of e-Learning’. The panel discussion included Vivek Bharadwaj, Director, Ministry of Human Resource Development, Manas Chakraborty, Head, HIWEL, Sunder Krishnan from American India Foundation and was chaired by Subhas Khuntia, Joint Secretary, Ministry of Human Resource Development. Vivek Bharadwaj shared his experience of working with UNESCO in developing indicators for measurement of impacts of ICT in education. UNESCO has developed impacts indicators such as input indicators, process indicators and and output indictors. For Chakraborty, there are three issues that needs to be addresses in largescale take-up of ICT-enabled education- making relevant content available, providing adequate infrastructure and evaluating the outcome of ICT integration. Sunder Krishnan pointed out that evaluation must remain focussed on measuring and monitoring the use of technology to fulfill the program’s goals and evaluation tools should monitor progress and performance in areas where obstacles are expected.

Krishnan also pointed out that the selection of schools that are best positioned to benefit from Computer Aided Learning (CAL) may be the most critical factor determining the success of the schools ICT program.

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ICT programs have to be customised depending on the needs of each school and a continued focus on teachers’ professional development and a national digital trust for content development are also crucial for sustainability of interventions.

Subhas Khuntia pointed out that there is need of national evaluation study on utilisation of computers in schools. Scaling up is intimately related to measurement and evaluation. Process and technology integration evaluations help to rethink and re-align processes to make them more effective.

Key recommendations for effective ICT integration in education S A clear policy that is dynamic and inclusive, with budgetary priorities.

This is required to systematically work towards redressing inequalities and inequities and provide a sound and sustainable strategy for ICT in education S To use ICTs for the achievement of ‘education-for-all’; ICTs needs to be explored for the management of ‘ICT for all’ programme and improving the efficiency for the delivery of education services S Partnerships are important medium for effective funding, implementation, and monitoring of programmes S Continued focus on teachers’ professional development, pre-service training and in-service training of teachers are needed S Training curriculum for teachers and educators have to be standadised S Collaborative research on the pedagogy of ICT-based learning must be initiatives S Connectivity has to be addressed as an issue, following the three basic issues of food, clothing and shelter S National guidelines for content development and standards and mechanisms for evaluating digital content for education needed S A national clearing-house or a repository of digital learning resource especially content is recommended S National digital trust for content development - a portal where all the stakeholders can exchange knowledge and views, problems and challenges which can grow through effective peer-learning S Sensitisation of education officers, teachers and educators on ICT in education S Research and identify indicators of impact assessment of ICT in education is very critical need of the present time S Monitoring and evaluation of interventions to be built-in in the process S Exploring open education resources, open technologies and collaborative research in higher education as a policy and strategy S Promoting and supporting open schooling and education for formal education, vocational education and life-skill education to bridge the knowledge divide October 2006 | www.digitalLEARNING.in

This is where showcasing was done Key solution providers in ICT in Education participated in the Exhibition.The exhibition was inaugurated by Jainder Singh, Secretary, Department of IT, Government of India. The exhibition served as a meeting point for the participants within the conference, and as an excellent opportunity to meet with and be up-to-date with the latest offerings of the key exhibiting companies and institutions.

What our participants say Excellent participation‌many great speakers who had substance to offer in terms of their knowledge and experience. Also excellent networking, linked to the general high quality of participation, good audience discussion in some sessions and opportunities for follow-up.

Dorothy Gordon, Kofi Annan Centre for Excellence in IT, Ghana Our primary objective of highlighting the work we do through our Digital Equalizer Program was largely achieved through the conference. In overall terms, we are satisfied with the outcome of the conference. The exhibition was very useful for us as we got acquainted to a number of e-content vendors who could be of great use to us.

Chetan Kapoor, American India Foundation, India We are extremely happy with the quality time that we could spend in the conference as participants ‌ Sonjib Mukharjee, Chief Executive Officer, Metalearn Services Pvt Ltd I am really enriched after participating the conference.

Bibhas Chatterjee, Project Director, GNK-Plan

Digital Learning | Vol 2 Issue 10 October 2006

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Ravi Gupta, Director, CSDMS, convening the valedictory session

Randeep Kaur, Plan International, Subhash Khuntia, MHRD, GoI

Dorothy Gordon, Kofi Annan Centre for Excellence in IT, Adrian Marti, SDC

Sanjeev Gupta, Dept. of IT, Himachal Pradesh, Dr M P Narayanan, President, CSDMS

Tanmaya Chakrovorty, Tata Consultancy Services, Mark Surman, Telecentre.org

Wrap-up and Valedictory Session In the wrap-up and valedictory session, key persons from Government, International development and funding organisations, private sector, NGO practitioners shared their experiences of the conference.

Randeep Kaur of Plan International pointed out that the discussion and deliberations in conference has shown new light and faith in the strengths of partnerships and collaborations for development in general and education in particular. With respect to ICT in education, the conference brought to light interesting ideas and practices of ICTs education beyond the classrooms and curriculum to vocational education and life skill education. Mark Surman of telecentre.org, Rinilia Abdul

Rahim, Executive Director, Global Knowledge Partnership (GKP), Adrian Marti, Deputy Country Head, Swiss Agency for Development and Cooperation (SDC), Dorothy Gordon of Kofi Annan Centre for Excellence in IT, Sanjeev Gupta, IT Secretary, Himachal Pradesh, India, Tanmaya Chakrovorty, TCS and Dr M P Narayanan, President, CSDMS expressed their views on the conference. Various recommendations emerged from the three-day deliberation that reinforced the much needed focus on capacity building and content for ICT in education.

Dorothy Gordon fervently set the path for the follow-up from this

conference in the valedictory statement- “I want to throw a challenge to the team (organisers), to take the results of this conference from various tracks to various regional languages, put it in Hindi, put it in Kannada, etc. …have regional meetings to discuss and find out what do the people say about the findings, do they agree, do they not agree…translate the whole thing in regional languages and start the debate again...”.

A detailed report, summary of the key sessions and presentations will be made available at www.digitalLEARNING.in/DLindia

Participants expressing the views in the valedictory session

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October 2006 | www.digitalLEARNING.in

The Asian ICTD Platform

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6-8 FEBRUARY 2007 PALACE OF GOLDEN HORSES

ORGANISED BY

KUALA LUMPUR MALAYSIA

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5 events : 1 venue Improved communication and information services are directly related to social and economic development of nations. Internet and modern communication platforms offer immense potential as multipurpose tools through which information and services can be delivered anytime and anywhere. However, upon delivery, the uptake of information and online services depends on the capacity of people and organisations. Again, of prime importance is service access points such as telecentres and boderless technologies like mobile technology as an way to address the 'reaching the unreached' and empowering the rural community. In the emerging global knowledge economy, it is imperative for countries, communities and enterprises to strategise towards adoption and use of information and communication technologies and enhance their overall capacities.

Asian countries are increasingly realising these critical factors of success and are becoming proactive in improving existing conditions.

A lot of collaborative efforts are required between governments, industry, academia and civil society across nations to materialise these objectives of balanced development in a digital era. eASiA 2007 is an open ICT for development co-operation platform for Asian countries for discussing opportunities and challenges for promoting growth of ICT for development in Asia through consultative dialoguing, strategic planning, knowledge networking and business partnering. eASiA, through its five seminal conferences, will focus on five emerging application domains of ICT for Development - e-Government, ICT in Education, ICT and Rural Development, ICT-enabled Health services and Mobile application and services for development. The five conferences - namely egov Asia 2007, Digital Learning Asia 2007, Telecentre Forum 2007, eHealth 2007 and mServe 2007 will address the issues of digital divide and identify and explore opportunities for Digital Asia.

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Asian nations are emerging as most promising global economies; traditional governments and their ways of governance surely need to be redefined. With a plethora of public management and administrative challenges facing most Asian nations, coupled with heightened expectations of rapid socioeconomic development, the need for efficient government is higher than ever before.

Today Asian countries are competing with each other to be the frontrunner in technology-enabled education. While most countries do not want to miss the opportunity to connect to this ‘connected world’, the struggle to close the existing divides continues.

Research and practices have confirmed that a holistic approach that integrates and emphasises process, be it capacity building of the educators or transforming pedagogy or creating localised and relevant ICT-based content, has substantial impact and sustainable and effective integration.

Telecentres are increasingly emerging as one of the most important equalizers of digital divide among urban and rural citizens.

Telecentres or common service centers are aimed at expanding access to information and communication technologies. Telecentres as sustainable, multi-purpose service centres are emerging as a tool for empowerment of the community, enabling their access through ICTs to relevant information and common services.

There is a significant action happening in the sphere of e-Health globally led by experts in healthcare and hi-tech industries with a an aim to fully harness the benefits available through convergence of the Internet and health care. e-Health is today’s tool for substantial productivity gains, while providing tomorrow’s instrument for restructured, citizen-centred health care.

The lack of adequate connectively has been one of the biggest cause of the limited impact of ICT to bridge the digital divide.

Mobile phones have spread throughout much of the developing world more quickly and deeply than any previous technologybased as rolling out a mobile phone network is far cheaper than building a fixed-line systems and Internet networks for computers.

There are many examples of successful eHealth developments taking place in Asia including health information networks, electronic health records, telemedicine services, portable monitoring systems, and health portals. However, there are challenges to overcome in access, technology and the right practices. There are much more to gain from sharing knowledge on the existing practices and deliberating on the opportunities and possibilities that ICT use for healthcare delivery.

Mobiles offer a lot more services than phones and entertainment (Games, Screensaver, Ring tones, Movie clips). These include: News, Stock Prices; Location tracking; Telephone directory; Mobile banking; Ticket reservation; Trading and so forth.

Modern ICTs provide boundless potential with proven credibility in transforming organisations and economies; governments across the world are increasingly getting active to embrace technology and leap-frog administrative reform.

With a purpose of creating an invaluable Asian platform for consultative dialoguing, strategic planning, knowledge networking and business partnering in the field of eGovernment, egov Asia 2007 is will bring together some of the best minds from the highest echelons of government, industry, academia and civil society to discuss and deliberate on the key strategies for eGovernment.

Asia has geared up to this challenge. Within these countries, while the private sector and the civil society has assumed leadership in some countries, governments in others are drawing the roadmap for a systematic integration of technologies in education.

Highlights:

Digital Learning Asia 2007 will bring some of the key drivers from the leading countries of technology-enabled education to deliberate on the pressing challenges of technology enabled education from capacity building to reengineering pedagogy, change management to providing digital access.

• National e-Government strategies

Highlights

• International and regional projects, case studies and best practices • Policy reforms for ICT-enabled governments

• National strategies on ICT in education • Localisation, customisation and content development • Educating the educators

The Asian Telecentre Forum 2007 aims to bring the Asian practitioners on a platform for learning and sharing the experiences.

Experts will be engaged in close assessment of issues relating to project monitoring steered by external financial support, from international development agencies and governments in Asia. Stakeholders from various sectors, viz., NGOs, Governments, Private sector, Donor agencies, Research organisations etc. will participate in this conference. There will be opportunity to showcase key project work and experiences through presentation sessions and/or panel discussions and through an exposition of products and projects.

Highlights • Telecentre movement in Asia: Road ahead • Partnerships for developing telecentre networks

• Models of e-Service delivery

• Re-engineering pedagogy

• Financing mechanism and sustainability factors of rural telecentres: A reality check

• Emerging technology solutions for eGovernment

• e-Learning trend and practices in higher education and school education

• Service delivery and capacity building through telecentres

• Public private partnerships in eGovernment

• Education technology trends in Asia.

eASiA2007 EXHIBITION The eASiA 2007 conference will host an exhibition of latest e-solutions, services, initiatives and case studies from across Asia and beyond. Professional service providers, IT vendors, telecom venders, satellite providers, consulting firms, government agencies and national/ international development organisations involved in the domains of ICT for Development, education, governance and health, are participating in the exhibition.

Highlights

mServe Asia aims to discuss and showcase the different aspects of mobile services, technologies, implementation and implications, developments on the public administration and tie them to the existing and future m-Government, education, agriculture and other applications. The conference will provide a platform to share local and international developments, experiences and lessons learned for knowledge sharing, and promote networking and business opportunity development.

• e-Health in developing countries

Highlights

• e-Health administration and management

• Mobile government

• Rural telemedicine

• m-Learn

• Emerging technologies in e-Health

• m-Agriculture

• Challenges and opportunities for collaborative action in e-Health

• m4development

eHealth Asia 2007 aims to provide a platform to discuss the recent trends and emerging issues in the development of Information & communication science and technology and its integration in healthcare systems.

• m-Health • m-Infrastructure • m-Services

Important Date Last date for receipt of abstracts: 25th November 2006

For any information/enquiry contact: Himanshu Kalra himanshu@csdms.in Tel: +60166852201

Conference Secretariat Centre for Science, Development and Media Studies (CSDMS), G-4, Sector - 39, Noida - 201301, India Tel. : +91-120-2502181- 87 Fax: +91-120-2500060 Web: www.csdms.in Email: info@csdms.in

The who’s who of ICTD Sector is part of our journey Kraisorn Pornsutee Aminata Maiga Afrilinks, Mali

Peter Moore

Permanent Secretary, Ministry of Information and Communication Technology, MoCIT), Government of Thailand

Region Managing Director -Asia Pacific Public Sector, Microsoft, Singapore

R. Chandrashekhar Karl Harmsen Senior Advisor, e-Strategies, World Bank, United States of America

Director, United Nations University Institute of Natural Resource in Africa, UNU INRA Accra, Ghana

Additional Secretary, eGovernance, Ministry of Communication and Information Technology, Government of India

Chaturon Chaisang

Kunying Kasama Varavarn

Suchai Charoenratanakul

Minister of Education, Royal Thai Government, Thailand

Permanent Secretary, Ministry of Education, Govt. of Thailand

Minister of ICT, Royal Thai Government, Thailand

Bruno Lavin

Lars H. Bestle Dennis Pamlin Policy Advisor WWF, Sweden

Subhash Bhatnagar

Programme Specialist - Policy, Asia Pacific Development Information Programme UNDP - Regional Centre in Bangkok, Thailand

eGov Practice Group, World Bank, on leave from Indian Institute of Management, Ahmedabad, India

Susanne Ornager Dorothy Gordon

Mark Surman

Director Kofi Annan Centre for Excellence in IT, Ghana

IDRC, telecentre.org, Canada

Devindra Ramnarine

Manoo Ordeedolchest

Advisor Public Sector Informatics, Governance Institutional Development Division, Commonwealth Sectt., UK

President, Software Industry Promotion Agency, Public Organization, Ministry of ICT, Thailand

Advisor for Communications and Information in Asia and Pacific, UNESCO, Bangkok, Thailand

San Ng The Asia Foundation, United States of America

Edilberto de Jesus Director, South East Asian Ministers of Education Organisation, SEAMEO,Thailand

Dr Morten Falch

Teresa Maria Camba

Danish Technological Institute, Denmark

Director, National Computer Centre, Govt. of Philippines

Dr Hyunjung Lee

Minja Yang

Asian Development Bank, Philippines

Director and Representative UNESCO, India

Massachusetts Institute of Technology, MIT - USA, Advisor to the Knowledge Commission, India

Michael Gurstein

Prof Yin Cheong Cheng

Centre for Community Informatics Research, Development and Training, Canada

President, Asia-Pacific Educational Research Association, APERA Hong Kong

M V Rajasekharan

Walter Fust

Director, National Computerization Agency, Republic of Korea

Hon'ble Minister of State for Planning, Planning Commission, Govt. of India

Director -General, Swiss Agency for Development and Cooperation (SDC), Switzerland

Kenneth Keniston

Nagy Hanna

Andrew Mellon Professor of Human Development, MIT, United States of America

e-Leadership Academy University of Maryland, United States of America

Prof Vijay Kumar

Jeremy Millard Head, eGovernance Program, Danish Technological Institute, Denmark

Jeongwon Yoon

W W W. C S D M S . I N / E A S I A

Are You?

News

and Mid Day Meals, of the Government. It was noted that the number of out of school children has been reduced from 25 million to 9.6 million over the last two years.

INDIA NIC, IBM join hands to power the national portal

National Informatics Centre (NIC), announced that it has partnered with IBM to power the national portal of India (http://india.gov.in/) enabling anytime, anywhere delivery of government services to its citizens.

The enhanced portal, based on open standards and Service Oriented Architecture (SOA) from IBM, will provide a ‘single point entry’ to government information and services resulting in greater transparency and responsiveness. IBM will bring robust software to make the portal more user friendly, secure and scalable. NIC & IBM will also work together towards ensuring universal accessibility of the Portal for the physically challenged and those using handheld devices.

Prime Minister reviews Sarva Shiksha Abhiyan

The Prime Minister, Manmohan Singh, reviewed the two flagship programmes, Sarva Shiksha Abhiyan Digital Learning | Vol 2 Issue 10 October 2006

The meeting was attended by senior officials of the Prime Minister’s Office, Human Resource Development and the Planning Commission. The Prime Minister expressed concern at pockets, across the country, where the number of out of school children continues to be high. He emphasised the need for providing joyful and quality learning, especially to the first generation school goers. In the context of the National Curriculum Framework – 2005, the Prime Minister laid emphasis on the need to improve the quality of Science and Mathematics teaching. He expressed concern over delays in teacher recruitment, absenteeism and deployment.

The Prime Minister desired that best practices in the Sarva Shiksha Abhiyan and Mid Day Meal programmes be shared across the States and the programmes be reviewed in the forthcoming meeting to bring about synergy and national consensus on programme priorities.

secretary (IT), Zohra Chatarjee, said INVITE would help in promoting quality IT education at all technical colleges and at the sub-division and village levels, besides upgrading distance education. She said though over 8,000 technical graduates passed out in UP every year, their technical skills in IT were not up to the requirements of the industry. She added that INVITE would upgrade the skills and bridge the gap.

India kicks off pan-African enetwork project Ethiopia, South Africa, Ghana, and Mauritius will be the initial countries for the Indian government’s USD1 billion Pan Africa e-network project, a joint initiative with the Africa Union (AU).

IBM, UP ink deal on IT education IBM Global Services India and the Uttar Pradesh state government in North India have signed a deal to promote IT education at the grassroots level as well as build capacity and improve skills of the IT workforce. The programme is called Initiative to Nurture a Vibrant IT Ecosystem (INVITE).

For the academia, INVITE aims to involve students of technical colleges and universities for creating solutions for local state e-governance at various levels and conduct technical seminars and workshops in major cities in the state to benefit local college teachers and IT entrepreneurs. UP’s principal

The project aims to develop Africa’s information and communication technologies by eventually connecting all of the 53 African countries to a satellite and fibre-optic network. The e-network will connect five universities (two in India and three in Africa) to 53 learning centres for tele-education. Five universities will be equipped with tele-education studios including post-production facilities, data centers, and a portal comprising delivery system software, and course content will be delivered to the 53 learning centres across the continent.

The Indian government has already established tele-education and 27

telemedicine hubs in Bangalore and Ahmedabad. It will establish a hub in Africa to act as the main contact point between Africa and India and oversee the delivery of services. The e-network project was first announced

by Indian president Abdul Kalam in South Africa in 2004. In October 2005, the Indian government and the Africa Union signed a memorandum of understanding to formalise the project.

Website to outsource tutoring services from India A new website will help teachers in India and Pakistan set up their own business of teaching students in the US. Catching on to the trend of what is being called educational services outsourcing (ESO), www.tutorswithoutlimits.com expects over 100,000 teachers in India and Pakistan to set up their Internet businesses. Founded by American IT entrepreneur Glynn Willet and his son, Tutors Without Limits (TWL) incorporates the new Web 2.0 AJAX technology to create the most advanced learning system for teaching on the Internet in a system called the Lesson Board.

US students usually pay USD40 an hour for tutoring services. However, last year, call centres in India started offering these services for as low as USD14 to USD20 an hour. Now, with the launch of TWL, tutors will be offering their services directly to students in the US at prices they determine. Although initially limited to the US, India and Pakistan, TWL services will be launched in Canada, Australia, Europe and Japan within two months.

Professors blocking in Edusat works Visvesvaraya Technological University (VTU) is the only technical university in the country to extend Edusat network to all its 121 affiliated 28

engineering colleges. But a recent impact study shows 32% of the colleges are not even switching on the terminals.

Only 19% of the colleges in the state were found to be using all services offered via Edusat network. The irony is that while students are ready to attend classes transmitted via satellite in addition to the regular lectures, their professors and college authorities are dissuading them from attending these lectures.

At a Bangalore college, for instance, the principal would intentionally put off the power connection fearing there would be no takers for his private tutorials if students attended Edusat classes. In another case, students even resorted to flash strike, demanding access to Edusat.

On its part, VTU is trying to improve the quality of programmes offered through two channels (one V-Sat based and other DTH). The V-Sat based channel will soon be converted into two-way audio and video so that professors in the studio will also be able to see students listening to his lecture from anywhere in the state.

A third channel is also being planned shortly.

Indian State to dump Windows for Linux Kerala, a southern Indian state plans to switch all school computers used in some 12,500 high schools, from Microsoft Windows to the free Linux operating system, said the state’s education minister, MA Baby.

According to the Chief Minister V.S. Achuthanandan, he was keen to develop the state as a free and open software systems destination. It is the stated policy that only free software should be used for IT education in Kerala’s schools.

Online study material for MBBS students

Students from medical colleges in the Manipal city can now receive additional training from the Manipal Academy of Higher Education (MAHE) Manipal, just at the click of a mouse. A new e-learning facility launched as part of MAHE’s new Digital Campus, will provide medical students in the first and second year MBBS with supplementary education material online, to support their regular college curriculum.

The whole admission process has been digitised, and will be run on the latest networking technology, the Multi Protocol Label Switch (MPLS) system, which will connect various examination centres across the country. MAHE’s Digital Campus will be wi-fi enabled. A unique videoconferencing facility has also been installed at the campus, wherein live lectures are delivered from the Beaumont Hospital, USA.

TN to set up infotech academy In a bid to improve the standard of computer education in Tamil Nadu, the State Government would set up an IT Academy in Chennai.

According to the Chief Minister M Karunanidhi, the academy would have a specific focus on upgrading the curriculum of graduate and post graduate courses, keeping in mind the present day needs. The Union HRD Ministry had decided to establish a National Centre of Excellence called ‘Indian Institute of Information Technology, Design and Manufacturing’ at Chennai, which would create a new chapter in the development of IT industry.

October 2006 | www.digitalLEARNING.in

Catalysing Action Nils Jensen [NILS_JENSEN@HOTMAIL.COM] Sweden

ICT Integration in Tanzania’s Secondary Education Policy

T

anzania covers an area of more than 900,000 square kilometres and has a population of about 45 million. Most of the people, 7080%, live in rural areas; have almost no income and very little education.

Official language is Swahili, but teaching language in Secondary Schools is English. There are about 3 million subscribers of mobile telephony, about 150,000 fixed line subscribers and only 6% of the population has access to electricity.

Access to Internet in rural areas is very scarce and of low capacity.

Information and Communication Technologies (ICTs) are a must, are becoming more and more integrated in society, and opening new vistas for people on a daily basis. Applying ICTs to empower education, and learning about ICTs in schools, are considered to be a necessity to overcome the challenges facing the education sector. To support the strengthening of education in Tanzania, the ‘eSchools programme’ is under formulation, a programme aimed at equipping a number of Tanzanian secondary schools with ICT facilities to enable teachers to use and teach ICTs for a better and more efficient education system.

Digital Learning | Vol 2 Issue 10 October 2006

The Ministry of Education and Vocational Training (MoEVT), is responsible for Primary and Secondary Education. Another ministry manages Higher Education.

Primary Education has been expanded dramatically during the last 5 years and can now offer education to all younger children. The capacity of Secondary Education is still very low, even compared to many other African countries, but the Ministry aims at a 50% intake of the school leavers from Primary Education within 5 years.

There are about 13,000 primary schools and 2,000 secondary schools in the country.

The eSchool programme has, for practical and tactical reasons, so far focused its efforts on ICT in Secondary Education. The very first initiative by the Ministry, in the area, was to send three of its staff members to an eSchool workshop in Botswana 2003. This seed grow to a seedling when the Ministry organised a workshop on ICT in Secondary Education in January 2005. The workshop involved 64 stakeholders and experts and resulted in a number of programme guidelines and, most importantly, a stakeholder forum of 29

about 35 persons from various professional areas and employments.

In subsequent meetings, work in task forces and a couple of more workshops, the forum developed further the ideas from the initial workshop, and presented finally a programme proposal in May 2006.

The key concepts Well-defined usefulness Students and teachers should not only learn ICT as such, but also use ICT as an integrated tool in the learning and teaching process with a resulting increase of the academic quality.

A holistic programme view To be efficient, the programme needs to be nation wide and include all crucial factors for success, including teachers trained in ICT, a curriculum with ICT as a subject and as an educational tool in all appropriate subjects, and sufficient funds to at least maintain the initial use-level of the computer equipment and bandwidth capacity for Internet connections.

Efficient programme organization

Capacity building of all involved actors

The Ministry should create the framework for the programme, including policy guidelines, strategies for increased educational quality and efficiency with the help of ICT, and master plans for staff training, the implementation of ICT in schools and for initial and recurrent support to schools where ICT is implemented. The more physical implementation of ICT in schools should be managed by a separate, special and temporary organisation.

The implementations could be done by any able organisation, such as NGOs, private sector or schools themselves.

Staff members at the Ministry need to gain capacity to be able to design, create and manage an efficient programme. Staff at the organisation (project) for implementation of ICT in schools need to be trained in quality aspects, performance evaluation and procurement. The implementing organisations and their staff need to be trained in project management, quality assurance, planning and installations of computers, local networks and software. And finally, each school manager (headmaster or head mistress) should be trained in the management of a computer installation, including financial matters, maintenance and repair, risks and staff requirements. The staff at a school where ICT is implemented need to have capacity for daily running of the computer installations, simple maintenance, problem solving and repair; safety and security procedures, teaching ICT as a subject and using ICT as a tool in teaching.

The students need to be able to use ICT in general and especially as a tool in learning.

A working ownership The Ministry is the overall programme owner with responsibilities as stated above under organisation. Each school will be owner the ICT development at the school, including being responsible for the equipment installed in the school and the efficient use of the ICT investment.

To be efficient, the programme needs to be nation wide and include all crucial factors for success, including teachers trained in ICT, a curriculum with ICT as a subject and as an educational tool in all appropriate subjects, and sufficient funds to at least maintain the initial use-level of the computer equipment and bandwidth capacity for Internet connections 30

October 2006 | www.digitalLEARNING.in

Appropriate technologies To maximise the benefits of ICT, the schools need to be connected to Internet. This is a major financial challenge in Tanzania, as bandwidth there is expensive. In most cases the schools will be connected via satellite (VSAT). Economy of scale and buying bandwidth in bulk for all schools and the management of bandwidth assignments to each school by the Ministry itself, lower the cost considerably. Thin client computers lower the equipment, maintenance and systems management cost per computer. Wireless networks are not yet fit for many (20+) computers in a classroom environment, so it needs to be wired networks. When there is no power grid within access of a school, solar panels will be the solution. Then 12-volts computers will be more energy efficient.

Being attractive for funding/ financing The Government of Tanzania can only provide a minor part of the funding required for the programme. Thus, it is important raise funds from other sources. The main funding source, so far, has been Sida, the Swedish international development agency.

The Programme model ICT in Teacher Colleges In the first phase of the programme, all 34 governmental teacher colleges will each get about 30 thin client computers and a server, all tutors are now trained in ICT and a few staff members at each college will be trained in maintenance and other technical matters. From next year (2007) all teacher colleges will have the capacity to train all teacher students.

ICT in Secondary Education In the next programme phase, ICT will be implemented in Secondary Education. This phase is still at the Digital Learning | Vol 2 Issue 10 October 2006

The aim is to design a programme based on the concepts: • Well defined usefulness • A holistic programme view • Efficient programme organization • A working ownership • Capacity building of all involved actors • Appropriate technologies • Being attractive for funding/ financing

The eSchool programme has, for practical and tactical reasons, so far focused its efforts on ICT in Secondary Education.

As a first step, ICT will be implemented in a minimum of 200 schools during two years. There are about 13,000 primary schools and 2,000 secondary schools in Tanzania planning stage, with the Ministry currently refining the programme description. As a first step, ICT will be implemented in a minimum of 200 schools during two years. The schools will be clustered in groups of about five, for efficiency in the implementation. The criteria for selection of schools is that they have at least two ICT trained teachers, have shown strong willingness to participate in the programme and are reasonably prepared to use ICT. Schools with electricity from a power

grid, will be prioritised. When an implementation team has left the area, volunteers with experience from longterm use of computers, and preferably teachers, will stay in the cluster area and support the involved school staff of the area. There will be two volunteers per cluster area, and they will stay in the area for at least 6 months.

The organisation responsible for the implementation of ICT in schools, will only finance implementation of ICT in schools, including cost for computers.

The Ministry will fund recurrent costs at the schools, including costs for maintenance, repair, Internet connectivity, etc. and also all costs for training, technical support and programme management.

The capacity building at the Ministry, in the selected schools and at the organisations that will manage the implementations in schools, will start in this phase. The start of the phase is expected this year. How long it will take for ICT to be implemented in all the 2000 Secondary Schools will depend primarily on access to funds. The feedback from the quality assurance, will also affect the pace of the implementation. The approach is to rush with caution, and work hard initially to achieve a successful showcase. It will probably take 5-10 years to install ICT in all the secondary schools of the country.

All text in the article reflects the author’s understanding of the programme, and in some cases, the most probable approach or solution to be selected, based on earlier discussions among stakeholders and decision makers.

The Tanzanian authorities have not cleared the article.

Nils Jensen worked recently in Tanzania for four years as ICT for Development Advisor with the Swedish International Development Cooperation Agency (Sida) and has been very active in the mentioned eSchool forum. Before Tanzania he worked many years as an international IT-consultant. He is now an independent ICT4D consultant based in Stockholm, Sweden.

31

Perspective M G Bala Prasanna [PRASANNA_MGB@YAHOO.COM],, Centre for Good Governance, Hyderabad, India

school score card

A Performance Monitoring System for Schools in India

Education is one of the most crucial components of human development and change for sustainable development. Increased and systematic use of modern information and communication technologies (ICTs) is advocated for education sector for improving teaching/ learning processes in educational institutions, educational planning and policy-making and monitoring of educational attainments.The Government is responsible for providing quality education to all the children in the age group of 5-14 years. Quality can be ensured only through transparent and qualitative assessment of schools on various indicators. Hence, there is a need to develop and deploy a tool like School Score Card to assess the performance of schools.

A

s a result of Education Policy 1968, there has been a considerable emphasis on expansion of educational facilities throughout the country. While these achievements are impressive by themselves; the problem of access, quality, quantity, utility and inadequacy of financial outlay accumulated over the years have now assumed serious proportions. In order to promote equity, it will be necessary to provide equal opportunity to all not only in access but also in the environment for achieving the target.

Andhra Pradesh, the state in southern India, will not be just a literate society, but a ‘Knowledge’ society, capable of meeting the present day challenges. It will be a state in which every person will be able to realise his/her full potential through access to educational opportunities, regardless of the region to which he/she belongs.

and Backward Classes. This will call for the strengthening, transforming and expanding of elementary schooling, including the revamping of their management, curricular and teaching methods.

To create knowledge databases at mandal (zonal) level on access to schools, infrastructure facilities, enrolment, retention, availability of teachers, their performance, their regularity, training, conduct of tests, performance of students, monitoring and supervision, participatory appraisal by school committees, supply of text books and other incentives is another objective.

“School Score Card” is a front-end interface for children, parents, teachers and administrators to know

the status of schools and their grading, that is, how they compare with other similarly placed schools in the district.

This tool adopted colouring scheme to grade the schools, so that user can easily identify status of the school.

Dark Green represents “Excellent”, Yellow represents “Good”, Orange represents “Average” and Red represents “Poor”. This application is an administrator’s tool to know status of school on various parameters.

Objective School Score Card is a web-based application developed by Centre for Good Governance with the following objectives: • To convert available data into information to assist planning and policy making;

To achieve this vision, the primary goal for the state will be to steadily increase overall literacy levels from the current 60.5% (2001) of the population to over 90% by 2010. To reach this target the state will have to significantly improve the literacy levels of groups with traditionally low levels - rural women, minorities, Scheduled Castes, Scheduled Tribes 32

October 2006 | www.digitalLEARNING.in

Grading of Schools using ‘School Score Card’-Methodology 1.Enrollment Ratio School Level: Calculating the Enrollment ratio for a school, with respect to the village population is not possible as the population data is not mapped to school level. So the enrollment is graded from village level.

Village Level: Data required: Sum of enrollment of all the schools in that village Total child population in that village • To assess status of schools based on indicators relating to enrollment and retention of students, infrastructure facilities, studentteacher ratios etc.; • To assess the quality of each school in comparison with other similarly placed schools in a district.

Measuring the achievement levels using ‘School Score Card’ Score Card Indicators In School Score Card basically 5 parameters are used to analyse the school performance.

1. Enrollment ratio 2. Pupil attendance 3. Performance of students 4. Availability of teachers 5. Infrastructure facilities According to the enrollment of the students or number of students registered for the current academic year the school is given a different score in this section. The attendance of the students also plays a major role in giving a grade to the school. And the results or performance of the students is also considered as a prime factor in giving a grade a school. Performance of students is dependent on the availability of teacher and depending on the infrastructure provided by the school. Calculating all the above parameter an overall grade or score is given to a school. A Score Card is generated for a particular school by the department.

Digital Learning | Vol 2 Issue 10 October 2006

Formula Sum of enrollment of all the schools in that village Village Enrollment Ratio = ________________________________ × 100 Total child population in that village Grading the village: Ratio Slab Greater than 90 percent Less than 90 percent and Greater than or equal to 70 percent Less than 70 percent and Greater than or equal to 50% Less than 50 percent

Grade Excellent Good

Score 1 2

Average

3

Poor

4

District Level: Data required Formula :

:

Mandals’ grades in that district

(Number of excellent mandals in that district *1+ Number of good mandals in that district* 2 + Number of average mandals in that district* 3 + Number of poor mandals in that district* 4) District Grade = ________________________________________________ Total number of mandals Grading the District : Grade Slab (District Grade) Between 1 to 1.5 Between 1.5 to 2.5 Between 2.5 to 3.5 Greater than 3.5

Grade

Score

Excellent Good Average Poor

1 2 3 4

2. Attendance School Level Data required : 1.

2.

3.

4.

Total enrollment Number of students with more than 50 % attendance in the month.

Number of students with less than50 % attendance in the month.

Number of students not attended at least one day in the month.

33

Formula A (Sum of attendance of students greater than 50 % Students with attendance in every month) More than 50% = ____________________________________________ ×100 Attendance (Total school enrolment) × (no. month school working )

Grades for village, Mandal and District regarding schools are calculated as above mentioned in Enrollment

4. Teachers

B

(Sum of attendance of students less than 50 % Students with attendance in every month) less than 50% = ____________________________________________ × 100 Attendance (Total school enrolment) × (no. month school working ) C

(Sum of attendance of students not attended Not attended at least one day attendance in every month) At least one day = ____________________________________________ × 100 Attendance (Total school enrolment) × (no. month school working )

School Level: Data required: Total no of teachers available Total no of sanctioned posts

The same formula & tables as we have used in Enrollment can be used here to grade schools at various level

If all posts are filled up then Grade is given as “Excellent” otherwise grade is taken as “Poor”.Grades for village, mandal and district regarding schools are calculated as above mentioned.

3. Performance

5. Infrastructure

School Level: Data required Total enrollment Number of students with more than 80 % Number of students with more than 60% and less than or equal to 80% Number of students with more than 35 and less than or equal to 60% result Number of less than 35% result

Data required: Classrooms, Toilets, Girls toilets, Drinking water, Electricity, Compound wall, Playground, Library

Formula: A > 80% Result =

No. of students > 80 % _____________________ × 100 Total school enrollment

Between 60-80% =

No. of students >60 -80% _____________________ × 100 Total school enrollment

B

C Between 35-60% =

D Less than 35% =

34

In this indicator 7 parameters are taken. One Weightage was given for having each facility and zero weightage was given for each not having facility.

A framework of transparency

This School Score Card is a framework of transparency in school administration that enables the public policy-makers and No. of students >35-60% administrators to easily know the _____________________ × 100 status and performance of Total school enrollment government schools by placing them in a comparative perspective.

No. of students < 35% While the first phase is a ‘Web _____________________ × 100 based application’ in which Total school enrollment infrastructure and attendance details are updated Gana Bala Prasanna Medisetti is once in a year, serving the Centre for Good attendance and Governance, Andhra Pradesh in results details are India as a Project Manager. Bala updated periodically by Prasanna has 10 years experience various schools. In the in training and project handling. Her project second phase, the same experiences include online case monitoring system can be linked with GIS, for anti corruption bureau, school performance mapping of schools to tracking system, higher education information villages through system, and enrollment and results analysis geographical among others. representations.

October 2006 | www.digitalLEARNING.in

News

‘Pepe’ does wonders for kids

ASIA Online education market to expand sharply South Korea’s online learning market is expected to grow rapidly by the year 2010, boosted by people’s passion for education and the country’s information technology (IT) infrastructure.

The market for e-learning is forecast to rise to 1.9 trillion won (USD1.99 billion) for the full year of 2006 and expand at an average annual growth rate of 20 percent by 2010, according to a report of the Korea Electronics Technology Institute. The local elearning market came to 1.57 trillion won in 2005, up 316 billion won from a year ago. Last year, individuals spent 671.5 billion won on online education, up 0.38 percent from a year ago, while large companies’ spending jumped 22.9 percent to 668.1 billion won.

Five varsities in Philippines to develop e-learning agri programme Five state universities and colleges (SUC) are set to receive 6.5 million pesos from the Open Academy for Philippine Agriculture to develop an e-learning and distance education programme for the country’s agricultural extension workers.

The e-learning modules will mainly cover rice production, as well as two other products indigenous to the location of the five recipient SUCs. The schools in turn will digitise their production guides into one-page fact sheets that will be posted at the OPAPA website (http://www. openacademy.ph). An online community of the SUCs will also be formed and will link with local government units and extension workers with farmers’ cooperatives.

Digital Learning | Vol 2 Issue 10 October 2006

Project Pepe or Promoting Excellence in Philippine Education programme of Bato Balani Foundation, the corporate foundation of Diwa Learning Systems Inc. (DLSI) in Philippines, believes that by creating an academic “ecosystem” in which public and private schools, the local government unit, teachers, students and their parents, work together for the good of the students, the quality of education will be improved.

Under the project, First Asia Institute of Technology and Humanities in Tanauan City was chosen as the hub university with 44 schools within the area named as partner-beneficiaries of the programme. As the hub school, First Asia provides facilities, teachers

Among its primary programmes are the award-winning “How to be A Highly Effective Teacher,” “Tulong sa Paaralan,” “Tulay sa Kaunlaran” and “Quality Teacher” campaigns.

‘Internet-ready Access Centres’ in schools in Malaysia Internet-ready Access Centres costing more than RM70mil in total are being set up in 1,500 schools around Malaysia.

Access Centres would be similar in concept to cybercafes, although its usage would focus on learning. Under the first phase, 1,500 schools would be provided with 15,000 personal computers and 1,500 printers as well as the necessary furniture and infrastructure.

Another 12,900 computers would be provided to 1,290 schools next year. To date, 84 primary and secondary schools in the rural areas have been equipped with Access Centres.

UGC bid on more ICT-based programmes

and training to help the other public and private schools in the area, as well as the students and their parents.

First Asia and its partner, Diwa Learning, will also shoulder the fees to be incurred by a teacher or administrator from each Project Pepe school who wishes to pursue a Masters degree in education.

Bangladesh will take initiative to develop more information and communication technology (ICT)based academic and knowledge-based programmes in the higher education.

Chairman of the UGC Asaduzzaman said this while expressing his satisfaction over the rapid growth of ICT and related fields in the country and the growing interest of the students in this connection as well as their participation.

One computer for 25,000 elementary students in Philippines A survey conducted by Department of Education (DepEd), Philippines, reveals that twenty-five thousand public elementary school students are sharing one computer while the ratio for high school is 111 students per computer.

There are approximately 37,900 public elementary schools and another 4,769 public high schools in the Philippines. The lower PC-to-student and teacher ratio in high schools can be attributed to the massive PCs for public schools project started by the Department of Trade and Industry, which has already covered about 3,000 public high schools. Unfortunately, there are no similar activities at the public elementary school level.

35

ICT and St. Mary’s School Education is all about giving children the opportunity to experience a variety of things and definitely, the world of technology and all its associated paraphernalia is an important experience that every child must undergo.This is especially important when we realise that with the knowledge explosion that has taken place in modern times, education is no longer perceived as a medium for content transaction but one in which students are taught how to continue with lifelong learning. Putting this at the backdrop, Annie Koshi (koshi2000@yahoo.co.uk), Principal, St. Mary’s School, New Delhi, India, shares her experiences of integrating technology into the school system by giving a wide spectrum of the use of Information and Communication Technologies in St. Mary’s School, starting from inside the classroom to the neighbourhood community.

School Tra ck

Powe r School Infrastructure The School has 4 computer labs with 20 to 25 computers in each lab. When children come to work in the lab one computer is shared between two students.

The computers are well connected to the UPS. The school has 6 UPS of 2.5 K.V each which gives us a secure back up for 30-40 minutes. In addition, the school also has a generator of 100 K.V. Thus the labs are well equipped to face any power failures.

St Mary’s School ventured into e-learning in the early 90’s when we were first introduced to information technology. But while we admire the breath and versatility of technology we have not allowed it to replace the human element in the classroom. We have used it to enhance classroom transaction by integrating it into the curriculum. Word Processing programmes (MS-Word), Internet, CD-ROM encyclopedia, software developed by the computer teachers, etc. are used in the regular curriculum to reinforce lessons taught in class. For example: Class I had the topic ‘Animals’ as their theme in September. Children did various drawings on the topic “Things we get from animals,” and identified wild and domestic animals in Kid Pix.They heard the sounds of different animals on related websites, and also played a computer game which involved tabulating animals under wild, domestic, or pet animals. On a similar note Class II had the theme ‘Plants’. Children saw an animation of a growing plant and thus were able to visualise the different stages of a growing plant.

Teachers designed a worksheet on software called Dream Weaver on the Intranet for recapitulation. Students also had fun completing a crossword on Plants which was designed using Visual Basic. IT has thus helped to break the monotony of normal classroom teaching and has brought in the excitement of real life into the classroom. It has also enabled students to understand concepts, which would otherwise have been difficult to comprehend especially in mathematics, science, biotechnology, etc.

36

All work in the accounts department as well as in the administrative wing is computerised.

All computers are on LAN and are connected through the day to the net through cable. Children are encouraged to use the net. Care is taken to ensure they understand the dangers as well as the advantages of using the net.

The School Management Software (SMS) is a web based software being developed by the computer department which in turn will give administrators, educators and families the power of information with a simple point and click .The software integrated solutions and real-time access to data lets school spend October 2006 | www.digitalLEARNING.in

time on their number one priority, their students. SMS will give teachers and administrators easy access to records about each student in their class.

S.No Computer Lab

For Classes

1

Advanced Lab

XI –XII

2

Senior Lab

VII-X

3

Middle Lab

IV-VI

4

Junior Lab

I-III

Ongoing in-service training Teacher training has been an important and ongoing part of the introduction of IT into St. Mary’s school. It was felt early enough that unless teachers were reasonably familiar with the application of certain basic computer software and used it extensively during classroom transaction it would not be possible to ensure that children were exposed to and used IT to the extent and depth that modern day children should be using them. Teachers were trained in the year 1999 by the ‘Intel Teach to the Future’ programme.

Computers as a subject was already a part of the school curriculum, but after the Intel training, computers became a passion with the teachers who strive to enhance the quality of their teaching methodology by making innovative worksheets, presentations, web quests, or by online testing. Since then teacher training has been an ongoing process and teachers are required to complete a minimum number of hours on various programs, at their convenience, within a stipulated time frame. The knowledge of various IT applications has also helped teachers deal with needs of children with different abilities The Teachers Resource Centre was set up to give teachers the opportunity to develop their IT skills.

The resource centre has four multimedia computers. To enable both Digital Learning | Vol 2 Issue 10 October 2006

staff and students to utilise computer resources effectively the school keeps the labs open till 3:30 PM everyday. All teachers are members of the SMS staff Yahoo group.

IT and inclusive education St. Mary’s School follows a policy of inclusive education. An inclusive school is one where all children irrespective of physical, mental or financial challenges learn together.

IT is used to help each child achieve the maximum they can. For example, a child who is visually challenged is able to function without the help of a writer if he or she is familiar with the software Jaws. Children who have cerebral palsy are also able to give their examinations on the computer without the help of a writer.

This in turn teaches them independence.

IT and social upliftment On popular demand by the vocational training group, computer classes were started for girls of the neighborhood, from the economically weaker sections. Each course runs for 3 months. The minimum qualification required by the girls to register for the course is a class VIII pass certificate.

They are taught MS Paint, MS Word, MS Excel, MS PowerPoint and Internet. Regular exams are conducted and certificates are awarded at the end of their programme. The school helps the girls to find suitable jobs and it is a matter of great satisfaction that some girls have already found placements as receptionists and data entry operators.

Thus we can see that there are endless possibilities with ICT. Its impact in the world of education has yet to be experienced in its totality.

Annie Koshi, Principal of St. Mary’s School, is also the Chairperson of the Sahodaya School Complex-South Delhi, a member of the Governing Body of the Central Board of Secondary Education, a member of the National Committee on Primary Education and Literacy constituted by the Confederation of Indian Industries, is on the Board of Directors of PRAVAH and Akshay Pratishtan, India. Annie Koshi received the prestigious National Award for Teachers, conferred by the Ministry of Human Resource Development, Government of India, in the year 2004. She has also been felicitated by the National Literacy Mission for her educational leadership in the field of literacy, awarded the National Child Care Award, India Development Education Award and the Freelance Journalists & Writers’ Association Award, twice, for her contributions in the fields of education, art and culture.

37

In fo

World Teachers’ Day at 40th Anniversary!

On October 5 each year, teachers worldwide mobilise to ensure that the needs of future generations are taken into consideration. World Teachers’ Day (WTD), as is observed on October 5, provides the opportunity to draw public attention to important role of teachers within society.

UNESCO inaugurated October 5 as World Teachers’ Day in 1994 to commemorate the joint signing of the UNESCO/ILO Recommendation concerning the Status of Teachers on 5 October 1966. World Teachers’ Day also highlights the UNESCO Recommendation concerning the Status of Higher Education Teaching Personnel adopted in 1997.

This year’s celebration is particularly significant as it marks the 40th anniversary of the adoption of the UNESCO/ILO Recommendation on the Status of Teachers.

Over 100 countries observe World Teachers’ Day. In 2006 “Quality Teachers for Quality Education” is once again the theme for WTD. Digital Learning while recognising the contributions of the teaching community, invites all from the teaching and learning community to be a part of our endeavour to highlight the innovative contributions of the teaching profession and to be a part of our journey to keep all informed.

Knowledge Bank Teachers identify wireless as key to classroom of the future More than two-thirds (69%) of teachers believe that wireless connectivity will be the most important technology in the classroom over the next five years, finds a Dell (www.dell.co.uk) survey.

The research into teacher attitudes to ICT, carried out with 277 primary and secondary schools, also found that while access to desktops and notebooks for each student remains important (49%), it is the emphasis on mobility that reflects teachers changing needs to use technology in all elements of lesson delivery.

Barriers to technology use Concerns over downtime (56%) and slow connections (32%) are seen by 38

teachers as one of the main challenges for ICT in lesson delivery.

Teachers highlighted the importance of minimising downtime and using technology as an aid to teaching.

Other barriers and concerns identified by teachers over the next five years were future budgets (79%) and lack of computers (64%).

Significant increase in ICT training for teachers Encouragingly, there is a significant increase in the number of teachers that have had some form of formal ICT training. 91% of teachers that took part in this year’s survey had some form of ICT training, compared with 78% last year.

ThinkQuest International 2007

Ce nt re

ThinkQuest inspires students to think, connect, create, and share. Students work in teams to build innovative and educational websites to share with the world. Along the way, they learn research, writing, teamwork, and technology skills and compete for exciting prizes.

Sponsored by the Oracle Education Foundation (http://www. oraclefoundation.org/), the competition offers a unique project-based learning experience to students and teachers across the globe. Everybody wins by having their completed websites published in the ThinkQuest Library, a rich online resource visited by millions monthly.

Its an annual competition, so join the 30,000+ students worldwide who have participated since 1996.

Students, ages 9-19, form a team and recruit a teacher to act as coach.

Once the coach enrolls the team, students work together to create an innovative website on any topic within a broad range of educational categories.

Awards and Prizes The top 10 teams in each age division receive laptop computers and a cash award for the coach’s school. In addition, the top 3 teams in each age division travel to ThinkQuest Live, an educational extravaganza celebrating their achievements. A special award is also presented to the team best demonstrating global perspectives.

Entry submission Deadline: 16 April, 2007 Winners announced 14 June, 2007 For the rules and step-by-step guide to participate in ThinkQuest International 2007, please visit http:// www.thinkquest.org/index.html October 2006 | www.digitalLEARNING.in

Learning Curves Teacher training promotes homegrown education in Indian State Government school teachers in Uttaranchal in India, equipped with training in basic computer skills through a public-private partnership, have taken the lead in creating an exciting new curriculum for their students. The results are CDs that talk and software that addresses national problems like AIDS through a localised approach.

Since 2003, each senior secondary or inter-college school has been given two to four computers.In 2003, the state government tied up with Microsoft for computer training for school teachers, who went on to train others. Microsoft worked with more than 5,800 teachers and 2,722 master trainers. Using their computer skills, teachers in the state now are augmenting their teaching through interactive CDs. A biology teacher in a school has created CDs that display the human anatomy. The government plans to introduce computers at middle school levels as well and to digitise ultimately the curriculum in all classes.

Mediascapes stimulate learning Education innovator Futurelab has launched a free resource for schools that combines hands on activity with the latest mobile technology. Create-A-Scape is said to support learning that is both engaging and stimulating, enabling young people aged 10 and upwards to learn whilst exploring their surroundings.

The Create-A-Scape website (www.createascape.org.uk) provides a set of resources to enable teachers and pupils to create digitally enhanced, personalised learning experiences called mediascapes. A collection of location sensitive sounds and images ‘attached to’ the local landscape are created using the mediascape authoring toolkit, a pervasive media software developed at HP Laboratories in Bristol.

Users can create a range of experiences – from tours of discovery to art installations.

The Create-A-Scape website contains everything that is needed to get started – all that schools require is a PC, a PDA handheld computer and enthusiasm.

USE YOUR SPACE

Help for refugee teachers An initiative has been launched in London to allow qualified refugee teachers, to update their skills so that they can gain work in education. Empower Teachers has received funding from the London Development Agency to provide training and work experience placements exclusively to overseas teachers, who are either unemployed or only employed for 16 hours a week.

Beneficiaries of the course will receive training on one day a week and work placements two days a week for a period of 30 weeks. The course will focus on subjects such as knowledge and understanding of the national curriculum, teaching and class management and monitoring and assessment. Teachers will also be trained in ICT and employability skills. Those wishing to apply should contact Empower Teachers through info@empowerteachers.co.uk

Digital Learning | Vol 2 Issue 10 October 2006

This is your space, your space to watch, your space to use and your space to change too. We invite you to be a part of our ‘School Track’ section, which you can do by contributing your experience with ICTs as a schoolteacher, principal and administrator, or as someone in the school education process working in any capacity. We welcome your stories, research papers, opinion pieces, resources or any other such relevant information, news, and a new idea for this space that can help elevating the spirit of education in schools with integration of ICTs. We look forward to you using this space, by sending your words to info@digitalLEARNING.in

39

News

CORPORATE LG engineers book-reading phone for the blind

LG has demo’d the world’s first ebook reading mobile phone, pitching the product at the visually impaired. The LF1300 is entirely operable, using voice commands relayed through a bundled Bluetooth headset.

The 16mm-thick handset’s audiobook facility takes text files some 300 of which will be made available free of charge from LG’s website via a PC or downloadable straight to the handset - and reads them out loud using speech synthesis technology. It will only be offered to the registered visually impaired, blind or dyslexic.

Learning solutions co signs pact with Bengal Everonn Systems India Ltd, the education and learning solutions company, has signed a 6-year agreement with the Department of School Education, West Bengal, in India to set up IT infrastructure and impart IT education in as many as 555 40

schools in three districts of the State.

The districts are West Midnapore, East Midnapore and Purulia.

The company will be responsible for putting up the infrastructure and imparting education, where a minimum of 200 students per school are expected to enrol for the IT programme. The project, besides extending computer education to students, will also create employment opportunities locally, as they would be recruiting qualified teaching staff from within the State.

Implemented for students between Class 6 and Class 12, the programme has been extended to some 9 States involving a total universe of 1,600 schools across the country. Everonn has two distinct revenue streams. The first is through institutional education, wherein IT education and computer-aided content is offered alongwith infrastructure in schools and colleges. And the second one, virtual and technology-enabled learning solutions, offers curriculum and job-oriented courses to colleges and schools under the company’s own “Zebra Kross” brand.

Satyam signs MoU with Melbourne varsity

each year. Additionally, Satyam will recruit as many as 20 software engineers from the university every year. Program participants will undergo a three-month training course in India and China. Upon completion of the program, the Company will place them on projects in Australia, or one of its other 55 global locations. Last year, the Company embarked on a similar initiative with the Victoria University.

IMicrosoft launches cyber education solution in Vietnam

Microsoft Vietnam launched its online Partners in Learning program including e-learning solutions and Teachers Network.

The solutions, integrated in the program’s website www.mspil.net.vn, is aimed at helping develop a webbased forum for the PiL community’s learning and sharing. The Teacher Network will enable teachers to access classroom learning resources and online teacher communities.

Dell Foundation awards 2006 ‘Connected Community’ grants Satyam Computer Services Ltd announced that the Company and The University of Melbourne (MU), have signed a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) that will increase opportunities for both Melbourne Information and Communication Technology students and businesses.

This alliance will enable up to 10 MU students to undertake a software development internship with Satyam

The Dell Foundation has awarded “Connected Community” grants to 25 organisations in four states - Texas, Tennessee, Oklahoma and North Carolina, in United States of America where significant numbers of Dell employees live and work.

The two-year, USD50,000 grants support basic technology access for Dell’s neighbors, with emphasis on helping underserved children become competitive in the digital economy.

Some grants provide Internet access October 2006 | www.digitalLEARNING.in

and computers for pre-school and after-school programs. Others include a mobile computer lab to enable children to use Internet resources for their homework, and a Web-based musical education program and chat rooms for schools to enhance learning opportunities.

Sun, Jobs-Iris announce IT education initiative in Bangladesh Sun Microsystems and the Job Opportunities and Business Support Centre for Institutional Reform and Informal Sector Bangladesh (Jobs-Iris) signed a memorandum of understanding (MoU) focusing on Sun Academic Initiative (SAI). The programme aims to enhance Bangladeshi students’ skills and core competency in Sun Technology and their marketability.

Under the agreement, Jobs-Iris Bangladesh will help increase awareness about the latest Sun technologies among the members of the academia and student-apprentices of Bangladesh and will create opportunities for them to be trained in those.

WebEx, Indiss In E-Learning Pact

Intel ropes in Xpress Computers to market school kit To tap the growing demand for computing technology in education sector, Intel launched the Integrated Solution Kit for Education (ISKE) giving channel partners the exclusive go-tomarket privileges.

Designed to enable Intel Channel Partner Program members to sell complete, scalable computing technology that addresses the needs of teachers, students and administrators, the Intel ISKE includes an Intel desktop board and a set of individual software applications, services, drivers and support. Through these trained channel partners, Intel has created a one-stop destination for the customers who want to buy or install ISKE. The kit is built on open interfaces and standards that enable the Intel channel partner program members, the open source community and third-party vendors to build upon the core solution. The kit comprises of three softwares ‘Moodle’, ‘CenterSIS’ and ‘OC-Education’ to cater to knowledge sharing, distance learning, web publishing, library management and maintaining records for students among others.

Indian universities with online technical training courses.

A joint solution, based on the WebEx Training Center, will provide hands-on experience for students across universities in India, starting with Tamil Nadu. The joint offering will also allow universities to conduct online tests. With the WebEx-based solution, universities will achieve economies of scale and will be able to tap potential students in remote areas as well, without having a significant bearing on investments.

Diploma courses in e-learning, mobile gaming

WebEx Communications, a provider of online meeting applications in the world and India, has inked a partnership with Indicom Software and Services (Indiss), a Chennaibased e-learning company, to provide Digital Learning | Vol 2 Issue 10 October 2006

Image Infotainment Ltd has launched two new diploma programmes in elearning and mobile gaming. The company has pioneered in the field of digital media education in the country, launching the country’s first professionally-managed training institute IMAGE (Institute of Multimedia Arts and Graphic Effects) in 1996.

The two-year programmes deal with the methodologies associated with designing the visual aspects used in mobile gaming and e-learning. In the fast-track mode, the course can be completed within a year. The fee for the course is Rs 54,000.

24/7 Customer programme In its efforts to create an employable workforce for the Indian business process outsourcing (BPO) industry, 24/7 Customer has launched “24/7 Ascend”, a programme for college students and academic institutions. As a part of this initiative 24/7 Customer will conduct online and offline programmes for the college students in Andhra Pradesh.

According to the Chief Operating Officer of 24/7 Customer, S. Nagarajan, the initial positive response received for 24/7 Varsity to create an employable workforce, encouraged to extend services with 24/7 Ascend.

41

Karnataka

Integrate Lessons from Pilots into Policy Making

India Statescan

L K Atheeq, State Project Director, Sarva Shiksha Abhiyan, Karnataka ? What is the vision that the

education policy is based upon in Karnataka?

The vision of primary education is to provide quality education useful for life to all the children of the state in the age group of 6-14 with no social group or gender differences.

? What are the new strategies the state has adopted to take Sarva Shiksha Abhiyan to a new high? Do you see any remarkable change or progress in elementary education?

How good is the school system in Karnataka? How much better can it become? How can we get every child in school to learn well?

Questions that need answers if the state is to take its rightful place in the country. And the counteractive actions taken now within schools and the education system can reverberate for generations to come. ICT as an important initiative in education, there is little option for all concerned but to join the information technology bandwagon given the manner in which it is reshaping the world. Where does the state stand with ICT in the school education system? At present, the Sarva Shiksha Abhiyan of the Government of India pledges to achieve the task of universalisation of primary education by 2010. In Karnataka, the target year accepted by the Department of Public Instruction is 2007. A state that has the objective to ensure that education becomes a means of genuine empowerment of the individual to achieve his/her full potential by 2007, Karnataka has a literacy rate of 67.04%. The literacy among men is 76.29% and among women it is 57.45%. The literacy rate of the state is 1.66% more than National Literacy Rate. Now where to move from here; and how to move? L.K.Atheeq, State Project Director, Sarva Shiksha Abhiyan, Karnataka, adds more to these facts while in conversation exclusively with Manjushree Reddy of Digital Learning.

42

Karnataka state has several initiatives of its own in addition of SSA. The education department and the SSA Mission are jointly working towards consolidation of the gains of our investment in education and improve quality. Community empowerment and involvement of School Development and Management Committees (SDMC) is the key to implementation of SSA. Towards quality of education Karnataka, for the first time in the entire country, SSA has conducted complete assessment of all standard 5 and 7 students and shared the results with each school. These results are being used for working towards improving learning levels.

? What are the interventions you have made so far to integrate ICTs in the educational process, elementary education in particular?

We are working towards a policy for ICT in schools and are planning to implement ICT with a strategy to cover all clusters and strengthen the clusters as resource centre for IT. We are also in the process of evaluating the software that is available in order to adopt in our schools.

October 2006 | www.digitalLEARNING.in

? How conducive is the atmosphere

? How are you working on

for ICT education in the state? What is the IT Infrastructure and power scenario in the state?

influencing policies at the state and central government level?

Atmosphere is very conducive and there is a lot of demand. Under SSA we are not able to cover many schools. The state will have to think of quickly up-scaling the various experiments in ICT application that are currently going on in the state.

Power in villages is an issue and we are working out various alternatives including UPS that can be charged with low voltage and perhaps solar.

? Is motivating the teachers for their committed performance a challenge?

Motivating teachers is a challenge.

Under the Karnataka State Quality Assessment Programme we are planning to recognise and reward teachers of schools where the results of external assessment are good.

? While implementing the innovative education programmes do you think your state ever needs a state specific vision other than the guidelines provided by the centre?

Definitely. States like Karnataka have their own vision and we have started schemes of our own, which now the centre is thinking of introducing in SSA. Central Government prepares guidelines which should suit all states and justifiably such guidelines prioritise the basic minimum needs firsts. Education being state subject, state governments need to take lead and provide over and above what the centre does. Karnataka provides free textbooks and uniform to all primary school children. We run the largest network of educational hostels. We have recently introduced a scheme of giving schools to all poor girls who are enrolled in 8th class.

? How do you go about partnering with corporate and NGOs? Can you put a view on education activities being carried out through the

The education department and the SSA Mission are jointly working towards consolidation of the gains of our investment in education and improve quality.

Community empowerment and involvement of School Development and Management

SSA carries out research and studies.

As I have already pointed out, we also undertake innovative programmes with the partnership of NGOs and other organisations. For example, we learnt from the Learning Guarantee Programme of Azim Premji Foundation and incorporated the lessons in policy making. This and other inputs resulted in Karnataka Government setting up the Quality Assessment Organisation. Our practice and lessons from various efforts of SSA and NGOs goes into policy making and we give feed back to Government of India too.

? What reason do you see for the focus on ICT education? What kind of competencies do you try to bring in through ICT?

Committees is the key to

Parents think that without computer education their children do not have implementation of SSA. Towards good future. This impression has led quality of education Karnataka, for to a demand for ICT education. In the first time in the entire country, order to improve the quality of teaching, particularly of difficult SSA has conducted complete concepts we think ICT in education is assessment of all standard 5 and 7 important. We try to introduce basic elements of ICT to students of upper students and shared the results primary schools. Under computer with each school assisted learning all children are made to use educational software to learn curricular concepts. delivery capabilities of partnership programmes? How do you monitor ? What are the major hurdles faced your programmes and partners? while attempting to give SSA a new dimension and what are the Partnership with all stakeholders is challenges ahead? essential for education. This gains particular significance in the field of There are several challenges.

ICT in and for education. Education Education department is not used to department in Karnataka is working working in project mode and the with various NGOs in different management capacities at the district, fields of education. There is an block and village levels are poor. opportunity in this field and SSA is often seen as a separate Government should use the expertise project and the mainstream education of these organisations. Pilots and department sometimes likes to stay experiments done with the help of away. There is therefore the challenge NGOs should go in to policy making of integrating SSA into the and should help the Government mainstream of educational quickly upscale the good practices to management. all the schools.

Digital Learning | Vol 2 Issue 10 October 2006

43

News WORLD Less than 20% of varsities have access to ICT

E-Learning project to get underway soon The Jamaica government’s e-learning project will get underway soon in 31 institutions across the island. The one-year pilot will be implemented in 28 high schools at the grades 10 and 11 levels, and three teachers colleges.

After the test phase, the project will be rolled out to all of the nation’s 150 high schools from grades seven to 11.

It has already started the orientation of teachers and should be starting the actual training in ICT and how to use ICT beginning in November.

National Universities Commission (NUC) in Nigeria says less than 20 per cent of the nation’s universities have access to Information and Communication Technology (ICT).

The critical point according to the Commission is not the acquisition of hard wares and ICT skills for their own sake but the use of ICT as a tool for learning.

According to the NUC, a comparison of the state of ICT in Nigeria with the U.S. shows that 91 per cent of persons in 100 households own personal computers when compared to three households in Nigeria. NUC said that it would take more than 30 years for Nigeria to catch up on the present situation.

Launched in February 2006, the project is targeted at high school students and utilises both informal and formal methods of teaching. The schools are being equipped with the technologies that will allow them to access and to use the material and these include computers, desktops and laptops, multimedia projectors, documents and cameras.

One third of UK’s teachers ‘lack basic IT knowledge’

With the new status at the university, RDG has been tasked to manage the university web portal, alongside its consultancy and advocacy roles.

Alongside the government portal, RDG has already developed websites for ministries and several government institutions.

44

Ghana Gov’t unfolds strategies to roll out ICTS in educational institutions

The Ghana government is committed to the deployment of requisite tools and strategies to achieve the broad goal of every Ghanaian learner to be able to use ICTS confidently and creatively by 2015 because of the present information society and the global knowledge economy.

Under the strategic plans, a Ghanaschools and Communities Initiative or GeSCI supported in part by Global eSchools and Communities Initiative and the NEPAD e-Schools Initiative of the African Union (AU) would be coordinated by the e-Africa Commission.

Development Gateway turns varsity centre Rwanda Development Gateway (RDG), which has hitherto been a project, has been approved by the University Council to become a centre at the National University of Rwanda.

The survey showed that many staff in education continue to embrace traditional non-digital methods in the face of increasing demands for IT. A ‘digital divide’ is emerging between schools that embrace digital technologies and those schools hindered by deficiencies in ICT experience.

One third of the UK’s teachers lack the experience and knowledge required to operate basic IT systems and more importantly how to implement Information and Computer Technology (ICT) within the curriculum, according to new research.

The findings of the survey says that lack of consistency in implementing ICT in the UK’s education system could hold children’s development back by denying them access to the most up to date learning aids and methods.

The Government was encouraging initiatives like the new websitemycoursemate.com - from the private sector in the deployment of ICTs in education. The website is an indigenous Internet-based helpline for students where they could have access to tutorial services to enhance success in their academic work. It was Ghana’s and probably the sub-continent’s first online tutor for students, which would offer general tutorial services.

October 2006 | www.digitalLEARNING.in

International Congress on ICT, Philippines 16-18 November 2006 In response to global challenges and opportunities brought by rapid development in Information and Communication Technology (ICT), globalisation and the emerging knowledge based economy, the education sector must address and respond to these issues and challenges in promoting ICT through open learning and distance education.

The availability of new information and communication technologies highlights the potential contribution of distance education to widen access to education at all levels, to overcome geographical distances, to multiply training opportunities, and to empower teachers and learners through access to information and innovative learning strategies, both face-to-face teaching in the classroom, from a distance and in non-formal and informal settings.

Taking these into account, it was considered most appropriate and effective that all practitioners of e-learning, distance education, instructional designers, faculty, teachers and ICT trainers, would convene and share information and experiences on their ICT activities, discuss problems they encountered and explore possible ways of overcoming them.

Our objectives are focused on: (a) Identifying the key challenges in integrating ICT in education (b) Sharing information and experiences on the various global trends on ICT in accelerating development progress in education. (c) Gaining insights on the important role of the teacher in the ICT environment through innovative teaching strategies.

We are expecting over 1,000 delegates from more than 40 countries around the globe to grace the event, which will be held in the Queen City of the South, Cebu City, Philippines from 16-18 November 2006 at the City's largest Convention Centre, the Waterfront Cebu City Hotel.

The International Congress on ICT is a partnership initiative by the GKP Members, organized and hosted by the Commission on Higher Education, Department of Education, Technical Skills and Development Authority, Co-organized by Cebu International Distance Education College, in partnership with the Province and City of Cebu, supported by Cebu Educational Development Foundation for Information Technology (CEDFIT), Tourkonsult and Management, Inc., Kool Systems, ICT Council of Cebu.

The International Congress on ICT hopes to explore and tackle the issues of unfulfilled promises of the digital revolution in education. With the technological potentials at hand, there is still a need to overcome geographical distances and remove socio-economic barriers that has left millions of children still denied of the right to basic education.

There are many obstacles in the global challenge in education and amongst these are affordable access to ICT, cultural diversity and multilingualism and teacher development. Our goal is to be able to create a new momentum that will bridge the educational gaps. By combining resources of different stakeholders, public and private, by sharing relevant experiences and knowledge as well as building broad based alliances, we will be ready to show the way towards more comprehensive and more sustainable efforts of using ICTs in education.

REGISTER NOW

For more information, please contact: ICT CONGRESS SECRETARIAT c/o Tourkonsult and Management,Inc. Unit 8 Baseline Complex, Juana Osmena Street Cebu City 6000 Philippines Telephone: +6332 2551250 Facsimile : +6332 2547850 Email: ictcongress@gmail.com Visit our website: www.ict-congress.com

Mark Your Calendar october

november

EDUCAUSE 2006: Spurring Innovation and Marshalling Resources 9 - 12 October, 2006 Dallas, Texas, USA

APRU DLI Conference 8-10 November, 2006 University of Tokyo, Japan

http://www.educause.edu/ content.asp?SECTION_ID=169&bhcp=1

Access 2006 11 - 14 October, 2006 Ottawa, Ontario, Canada http://www.access2006.uottawa.ca/

Open Source Symposium 2006 13 October 2006 Mumbai 17 October, 2006 Bangalore, India

http://www.fenu.ru/?a=page&id=488

Organisational Learning 8-10 November, 2006 London, United Kingdom

http://www.aace.org/conf/eLearn/default.htm

mLearn 2006: Across generations and cultures 20-26 October, 2006 Banff, Canada http://www.mlearn2006.org/

Learning Technologies 2006 conference 8 - 10 November, 2006 Queensland, Australia http://videolinq.tafe.net/learning technologies 2006/index.html

december International Conference on Digital Library 2006 5-8 December New Delhi, India http://static.teriin.org/events/icdl/

10th APEID International Conference: Learning Together for Tomorrow 5-8 December, 2006 Hanoi, Vietnam http://www.unescobkk.org/index.php?id =3811

january

InSciT2006 - I International Conference on Multidisciplinary Information Sciences and Technologies 25-28 October, 2006 MĂŠrida, Spain

BETT 2007 10 - 13 January, 2007 Olympia, London

http://www.instac.es/inscit2006/

linux.conf.au 15 - 19 Jan 2007 Sydney, Australia

Fourth Pan-Commonwealth Forum on Open Learning 30 October-3 November, 2006 Ocho Rios, Jamaica

http://www.bettshow.com/bett/show_ home1.asp

http://lca2007.linux.org.au/

http://www.globalknowledge.org/www.col.org/pcf4

february

Content Management 2006 31 October - 2 November 2006 San Jose , California, USA

6 - 8 February, 2007 Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia

http://www.contentmanagement2006.com/

http://www.digitallearning.in/dlasia/

46

LIRNEasia is seeking applications for 15 awards to be made to young scholars attending the inaugural conference of CPRsouth. Each award comprises of (a) free registration for a two-day preconference tutorial on ICT policy and regulation research in the Asia Pacific, to be held on January 17-18, 2007, (b) cost of travel to and from Manila, and (c) accommodation and meals at the conference venue for five nights.

http://www.intrac.org/training.php?id=56/

www.opensourcesymposium.org

E-Learn 2006 - World Conference on E-Learning in Corporate, Government, Healthcare & Higher Education 13-17 October, 2006 Waikiki Beach, Honolulu, Hawaii

Call for applications for young scholar awards 2006

LIRNEasia is a regional information and communication technology (ICT) policy and regulation research and capacity building organization. Communication Policy Researchâ&#x20AC;&#x201D;South (CPRsouth), a new initiative by LIRNEasia and the International Development Research Centre of Canada (IDRC), intends to build Asian-based human capacity by reinforcing and developing the values and commitment of existing scholars in and with interest in the emerging AsiaPacific. The overall objective is to create policy intellectuals capable of informed and effective intervention in ICT policy and regulatory processes in specific country contexts.

Applications close on October 15, 2006 How to apply The application should consist of (a) a one-page bio that includes your contact information and the name and contact information for current supervisor or mentor, and (b) a one-page write-up outlining why you wish to be an Asiabased expert capable of contributing to ICT policy and regulatory reform in the region. Please name the file CPRsouth_YoungScholar_YourLastName.

Apply to info@cprsouth.org.

Notification on acceptance will be made

by November 15, 2006 with instructions on travel arrangements.

For further information, please visit http://www.lirneasia.net/about/ cprsouth October 2006 | www.digitalLEARNING.in

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I have needs Though, I have not The means.

I have learnt To give, without Ever demanding.

Is asking for An education, asking Too much.

I am but a child!

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