Bring back our children’s smiles, at the click of a mouse

During 2002 in Malappuram district in Kerala it was found that a large number of people working in the Gulf countries were returning home since the these countries were replacing Indian employees with locals. The district panchayat of Malappuram wanted to find a method by which the returning people were trained productively so that they could get alternative employment. This resulted in the district panchayat, gram panchayat and the municipalities of Malappuram district planning a computer literacy programme by giving a contract to a computer company.

When this plan was mooted, the Information Technology Department of the Kerala government thought that this could be taken up as an electronic and knowledge connectivity component of the PURA (Providing Urban Amenities in Rural Areas) Programme. Local entrepreneurs were asked to create computer kiosks in different villages in the state; and 455 kiosks were setup for providing training to nearly six lakh members. As per the plan, computer literacy training was to be provided to at least one member in each family. The programme was basically to make the members feel confident in using the computer and to be in a position to read mail and respond. A total of Rs 7 crore was spent on this project.

The entire programme was completed in two years. Many of those trained in the second phase got employment easily. The average cost incurred per person for training was just Rs 100. This is an example of providing a cost-effective, hassle-free network through a public-private partnership for training of the rural citizens.

Smiles of children

When you look at small children, they are always smiling. When they start going to primary school and carry a big bag on their shoulders, the smile reduces. When they reach secondary school, the smile further reduces. During higher secondary education, the smile virtually vanishes. When they enter college, they become more serious and after completing college they are in a state of big worry.

This is the situation that we all have to overcome. Can we make an education system which will retain the smile on the faces of our children right through? This can happen if we make the education system creative throughout and provide full employment opportunities to all youth based on their aptitude and capability. This creativity can come through the reduction of the theoretical burden at the primary level, progressively increasing theory at the secondary and finally leading to higher level teaching and creating self-reliance among individuals to undertake entrepreneurship and to be employment generators rather than employment seekers.

Cost-effective hand-held PCs

Students carry big schoolbags containing a lot of books and notebooks on their shoulder. Can Information and Communication Technology find a solution to this through a cost-effective hand-held computer which can be loaded with all textbooks as e-books, notebooks as e-notebooks and e-workbooks and become a self-learning tool for our children? Recently we in Rashtrapati Bhavan undertook an exercise with a tablet PC available in the market at around $800. We have loaded the Linux Operating System, and designed an e-book, e-notebook loaded with digital library books and connected them to our e-learning portal. With this tablet PC, I can collaborate with my officers and scientists, use it as a notebook, use the Internet, use the white board and it can work with all systems in an integrated mode. I can carry this device in my hand and take notes anywhere. Based on this experience, I would suggest that the Ministry of Human Resource Development and the Ministry of Communication and Information Technology (MCIT), R&D organisations and industry launch a programme to design, develop a hand-held device with the power I have mentioned at a cost of $100 to $250 (Rs 5000-12,500) per handheld tablet PC.

Rashtrapati Bhavan can certainly share its experience. Economies of scale will bring down the cost. This will not only enable schoolchildren to carry just the hand-held computer rather than a heavy bag for reading and doing class work, but will also be useful for teachers and other professionals. Once bought, this computer should be useful for the rest of the educational career.

Nodal centres for tele-education

During the last three years, Computer Literacy Awards have been given to around 140 schools in different parts of the country. I would recommend that the awardee schools may be made nodal centres for promoting computer literacy and computer assisted tele-education systems in all schools in the districts. Nodal centres can be connected to other schools in the district through Wi-Max and tele-education packages along with e-learning content. The nodal school can have a small studio and invite the best teachers in the district and facilitate transmission of quality teaching on different subjects to all schools of the district. This will enable equitable access of quality teaching to all schools in rural areas. This model is already functional in five village knowledge centres of Periyar PURA villages and the content is being provided by the staff and students of Periyar Maniammai Women’s Engineering College, Vallam, in Tamil Nadu. Rashtrapati Bhavan has a link to these PURA Villages.

E-learning content experience

I inaugurated an e-learning centre established by Rashtrapati Bhavan to enhance the learning process of students of the “Sarvodaya School” located in the President’s Estate. This provides 3D-based animated lessons covering the CBSE syllabus of science and mathematics for 1st Standard to 12th Standard. When I went for the inauguration the students were so enthusiastic, they started experimenting with the terminal even without training.

Can we use ICT to collaborate?

Schools that have been identified for the Computer Literacy Excellence Award will I am sure have some excellent teachers. There are many such schools across the country, which have at least one or more very good teachers. They should develop learning material and make them available to every child across the country free. I suggest that between the Ministry of Communication and Information Technology and the Ministry of HRD, we should identify the syllabi for each course in each class and request at least 10 teachers for every subject to develop e-learning material to a specific format and pedagogy. We then should select either the best course material or the best combination for a best of breed solution. Subjects can be made very interesting through stories, cartoons and even games.

I would like to give an example of a professor of Indian origin who has revolutionised the understanding of computer security by children using innovative stories and games. He is Prof Pradeep Khosla, dean of the Carnegie Institute of Technology. The portal where you can find the simple way of teaching children about information security through games is http://www.mysecurecyberspace.com/game.

Technology enhanced education

The three phases of learning are lectures, library and laboratories. These require increasing bandwith from a few hundreds of kilobytes for lectures to a few megabytes for formal digital libraries and the informal world of knowledge from the Internet, to gigabits of connectivity for remote laboratories in the world of high precision science and engineering. As bandwidth becomes cheaper and available in abundance, universities and institutions should be able to run remote instruments and facilities as complex as NMR to Wind tunnels and schools can have their virtual laboratories connected with R&D institutions. This will ultimately provide equitable access to the entire education system beyond just lectures and lecturers. Thus bandwidth is the demolisher of imbalances and a great leveler in the knowledge society.

To make the country the most advanced knowledge society, we should aim at making bandwidth available without hinderance and at no cost. Making bandwidth available is like the government laying roads. Movement of materials through these roads creates wealth in the industrial economy and the government recovers more than the investment on the roads by way taxes and enhanced prosperity of its people. In the modern digital economy driven by knowledge products, bits and bytes traverse the network and create wealth and this will recover the cost of investments in the bandwidth.

Adapted from the address of the President at the Third Annual Computer Literacy Excellence Awards for the year 2005, New Delhi, December 7