Kerala - Thiruvananthapuram   

Championing ICT-enabled education

Use of ICT tools in the secondary education system would allow for a uniform spread of quality education to even the remote corners of Kerala, he tells G. Mahadevan

If Kerala is to succeed in raising its standards of education to global levels, the State's general education system should be ICT-enabled as soon as possible, says Director of the State Institute of Education Technology (SIET) Babu Sebastian.

Dr. Sebastian told The Hindu recently that universalisation of secondary education was a done deal as far as Kerala was concerned. "We lead the country as far as the reach of secondary education is concerned. We have also succeeded in giving our secondary education system a qualitative boost through the introduction of the grading system and the continuous evaluation system in our schools. So, the foundation has been laid. Now, what remains to be done is to raise our standards to global levels. For this, the use of information and communication technology (ICT) for teaching and learning is unavoidable," he pointed out. Mr. Sebastian is a reader of Malayalam at St. Thomas College, Pala, and also holds an MBA with specialisation in marketing and a Master's degree in foreign trade from the University of Pondicherry.

He said the use of ICT tools in the secondary education system would allow for a uniform spread of quality education to even the remote corners of Kerala. "Research has shown that if you study by hearing something you retain 20 per cent. If you see what you learn you retain 50 per cent. So what if you can see and hear what you learn? Retention becomes 70 per cent or more. This is more than enough to understand that ICT-enabled education is the education of the future."

Dr. Sebastian argued that the hardware for ICT-enabling secondary education was almost in place, thanks to such programmes as IT@School and EDUSAT. Now, what was required was quality content to be broadcast over the Net and the EDUSAT to schools across the State and the nation.

In tune with the policy of the National Institute of Education Technology, SIET, Kerala, was engaged in developing broadcast-ready educational content for students from standards eight to twelve. As of now, SIET had about 600 hours of broadcast-ready educational content. SIET has also readied a CD-kit containing 150 video CDs as part of the CD library project of the Education Department. These CDs contain documentaries based on the syllabus of standard 10 in the State's schools. SIET is also awaiting the final approval for its Rs.138-crore `ICT@School' project submitted to the Centre. This project, if cleared, would ICT-enable learning and teaching in all Government schools in the State within five years, he added.

G.Mahadevan

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