Technology has a place but it has to be kept in its place!

Focus on technology is a dire need of the hour, but not knowing how to use it will simply replace black boards with smart boards, registers with Excel sheets, and manual attendance registers to biometrics. This increases productivity and frees time, but not knowing how to use the time can be detrimental to our education system. The Internet has a place in school, but kids in elementary level can live without it. We have experienced how children can adapt to technology very fast.

There is a consistent feedback from the industry which says they are not looking for technology skills, which can be taught very quickly, but for skills in writing and reasoning, work habits, ability to concentrate, and ability to have face to face communication. The children of today need to know something about the problem before they use technology to solve the problem. Most education systems across the world, India being no exception, are built around the concept of industrial production system. They fail to realise that education is an organic process akin to agriculture. The prime task of the teacher is to prime students with curiosity and inquisitiveness, and learning would naturally happen.

It is not an easy task to solve India’s education problem. Usage of technology and the government’s initiatives to spend money behind it are laudable. It needs a lot more work, though.

India’ trinity of problems in education include solving issues of cost, scale, and quality, which is not easy for any solution to fulfil, be it technology or policy. There is a dire need to re-look at curriculum, classroom environment, and the entire pedagogical processes. Finally, it has to lead to unlocking the imagination, creativity, and critical thinking of the child. And last but not the least, the teacher is central to good education. If education has to improve, there is no way it is going to happen unless the teaching improves.

The current policy changes are a signal in the right direction, and investment in technology is surely a badly needed step; necessary but not sufficient.