In a span of 60 plus years since independence, India has managed to make its
presence felt in the global arena, and for all the right reasons. People say
it's the IT boom or the outsourcing industry which has catapulted our nation's
economy. True to some extent, the statement however ignores the real or the
underlying reasons for success. Advancements in Education is the real reason why
we have so many engineers, doctors and millions of other professionals, who are
together taking our country forward. A lot of people would want to complain, but
at the end, like it or not our education system has played an important role in
bringing progress and prosperity to our country. For quite some time now, IT has
been a critical component of the educational experience, creating opportunities
for students. Many software companies are developing educational software to
facilitate teaching. On the other hand, there are companies working towards
innovative hardware solutions while keeping in mind, the costs and the target
audience. All said and done, the country has realized the importance of IT in
the education sector, which is a multi-billion dollar industry and remains
recession proof. Let's take a look at what role IT can play in this domain.
Where do we stand?
No matter what the need, teaching techniques or the administration of
educational institutes, people have realized a lot of benefits from IT
implementations. How institutes function, has changed over the years and new
technologies continue to penetrate deeper. Evidence for the same can be found
right from the start of the admission process, to daily classes, admin chores,
to conducting exams and declaring results. Making admission processes easier and
more efficient, most of the private players already have a website in place.
Also some institutes now have wireless connectivity throughout their campuses
while many are considering ERP solutions and smart classrooms. But still,
majority of institutes remain far from being high tech and are in need of
innovative solutions that can meet their needs and resources.
Roadblocks
Blackboards, desks, chalks and dusters, slates and registers remain modus
operandi for imparting education in most institutes. It is clear that the
potential for investments in this sector is immense as most of the schools and
colleges still use primitive means for teaching and running back-end processes.
The main reasons stopping them from going high tech tools remain to be monetary.
Though the importance of IT is well understood, the need for low cost easy to
maintain and easy to use solutions needs to be met. Unlike big organizations,
where IT hardware might be changed every second year, most educational
institutes don't intend to splurge that often.
Another roadblock remains the scarcity of employee training. Many schools and
colleges would first require the faculty and other staff to learn how these
technologies work. Therefore new solutions should be easy to grasp and should
require minimal training. Also, what remains absent in many institutes, is lack
of a dedicated IT team or a knowledgeable IT head.
Another major roadblock remains infrastructure. Apart from bandwidths,
something as basic as electricity is hard to get as you move further from the
urban areas. Institutes in such areas need solutions which together with the
above reasons should consume as low a power as possible in order to be run by
tiny generators when required.
Another major roadblock remains infrastructure. Apart from bandwidths,
something as basic as electricity is hard to get as you move further from the
urban areas. Institutes in such areas need solutions which together with the
above reasons should consume as low a power as possible in order to be run by
tiny generators when required.
Source: PC Quest