Technological Challenges of the Grassroots

As a follow up on my previous post, wherein I took a bird eye's view on the need for use of technology in education, I would want to run by some of the basic constraints to the use. As I made the case for digital literacy for students, I also realised that it cannot be provided by teachers who are not digitally aware. And we can rule out the possibility of specialised trainers/coaches providing the training because when you look at the massive structure of Indian education system coupled with the fact that we cannot provide enough good teachers, starting off a drive for digital education through specialised trainers looks highly improbable.

Here is a fact from my block: Rajound in Kaithal District, Haryana - All High Schools and Senior Secondary Schools have been provided with a computer lab. Each lab has roughly 20 computers each. However, there are only lab assistants here and no trained computers teachers in any school.

But the problems are much wider than that. When I speak of use of technology, I am speaking of digitization of the whole process. And that whole process needs to really go the "whole" way. What we have right now is an aversion to technology at the grassroots while the work continues to drag on with the same speed as it did before internet. The ABRCs (Assistant Block Resource Coordinators. P.S.: If you want to understand the way the government works, the first step is to get used to acronyms.) have all been provided computer training but barring one, all continue to submit their reports in paper. These reports are all entered into excel etc. by a data operator. The poor soul that she is, even has to cope with new versions of software of DISE (google this one!) and re-enter data for all schools while trying to keep up with new versions. Going the whole way here would imply taking the system live wherein updates are made on the back-end without any problems to the user. This may seem very basic but when you are working in the government, you don't find these basic things in place.

The end result is that the schools have requirements in terms of infrastructure or the staff has ideas to improve the education standards, but none of that reach the decision makers. Picture this: Any infrastructural requirement of a school is to be followed up by a JE (Junior Engineer) who makes financial estimates for the work required. The estimates are not localised but have to be made according to a booklet. The JE has no knowledge of the computers.
Two problems here: One, a JE is required to visit all schools. Some schools are inaccessible (In my block, more than half of them) and as the JE takes his own sweet time to do the estimates, I am pretty confident that the schools will not have their supplies before 3 to 4 months. Up until that time there will be another survey showing no improvement in learning levels and another set of DISE data to enter showing that the same requirements have not been fulfilled and the funds have remained underutilized. Secondly, since he has no knowledge of computers, I will never be able to track his work down and I would eventually receive a huge pile of data set that I will be incapable of verifying and would simply forward it to my seniors for approval.

To run something as huge as the Government Education System; systematic, continuous and fast flow of information is imperative. There is no reason why the information, no matter how complex, cannot reach the decision makers within minutes. There is no reason why we cannot have an algorithm for estimating costs when even the JE on the ground is also doing it through a booklet. The ground reality is that nobody at the ground understands technology and even when training has been provided, the employees have kept away from using it. It is not just a lack of understanding of the technology. It is also a fear of it combined with the laziness that comes with a sarkari naukri that has failed the efforts of the government. But we can't escape this phase. Basic systems need to be in place so that everyone involved can focus on learning levels. Otherwise, we're just beating about the bush trying to kid ourselves that we're making a contribution.

Education and Technology: Why digital literacy must replace literacy as a parameter of education!

I do not want to waste time and space here to lament the Indian education system the way it exists today. Indeed the ground for developing talent into professionals is far from ideal and consistent efforts from the government to push the cause of education among the rural areas and the underprivileged urban communities have failed to reap any satisfactory results. One reason is the lack of equity that exists and despite the much maligned input based approach of the government, as opposed to a more output based approach, we still do not have on board a system that can guarantee a minimum quality in education for every student irrespective of the geography or the demography. The fact is that we just do not have good enough teachers or enough good teachers. Teacher training has been promoted over the last decade or so but as we increasingly put our faith in teacher training without seeing any significant improvement in students’ skills, we continue to lose the battle.

It is here that I believe technology has a big role to play in our efforts of democratizing education, in ensuring that a student in a village in Bihar gets the same quality teaching as the student studying in the best private school in Delhi. We have had some welcome news in this regard as Salman Khan’s videos are now in the process of being translated in various Indian languages. MOOCs (Massive Open Online Courses), an innovative concept of professors at MIT, can prove revolutionary in the education space. Coursera, a MOOC program which was launched in April, 2012, provides courses from the best universities that students can take online and already has more than 1.75 million users across the world. This was hot on heels of Udacity and was followed by EdX – similar programs that use technology to take courses available to students who were, till very recently, unable to afford the best education possible. Hope is that soon these courses could also be used for accreditation. In K12 space, Mindspark – an adaptive online application - has reinvented the way kids learn with its expertise on students’ misconceptions. As the government aims to provide Akaash tablets to all kids in government schools, such services will prove to be the cornerstone of any technology driven initiatives.

While the benefits of technology may seem endless and can give rise to new, more efficient ways of teaching, it depends crucially on the quality of usage. Distributing tablets is barely the first step and would fail to make any significant impact unless accompanied with proper training on how to use technology. There needs to be constant monitoring of how devices are being used and to what end. This may even change the role of teachers into more of coaches, a requirement which may eventually be worked out better than training teachers. In places where quality teachers are available, technology will enhance the teaching as a supplement and a complement. There are professors in US universities who have turned the traditional model upside down and use readings and videos as a prelude to a class as opposed to assigning them as homework while the class time is used for discussions and debates. But for all of this to materialize, digital literacy is a basic requirement in a country like India. We can no longer treat technology as just another subsidy. Taking technology to the grassroots will be accompanied by large costs and substantial portion of that costs will have to be dedicated to training students, teachers and all stakeholders concerned. It also requires a change in mindset. Policy makers can no longer obsess over literacy as a parameter of development. Indeed, digital literacy is what we need to be concerned with. If the last ten years have taught us anything, it is that it is difficult to plan for technology and what it may do to change the paradigm. But what we can do is be prepared for changes. Digital literacy is the first step in that preparation.