Transcript Of CEC and the Media Centers: the prospects of

Of CEC and the Media Centers: the
prospects of establishing a Virtual
University in India to address the
issue of access and equity without
undermining the quality.
Dr. Shahid Rasool
• Former President of India, Dr. A. P. J. Abdul Kalam, identifies
India's human resource base as one of its greatest core
competencies. In his book titled India 2020: A Vision for the New
Millennium , he predicts that India will become a developed
country by 2020. He advocates that Indians at all skill levels can
excel in knowledge-based services, if given the right training and
are placed in intellectually challenging environments. A small
minority of the scientists and engineers, primarily those who
graduate from the IITs, IIMs and other elite institutes in India,
have become world-class knowledge workers and thought leaders.
But the advantage remains with these chosen few. The crux of the
challenge is to find out the way to train, what Dr Abdul Kalam
calls, the "ordinary Indian engineers and scientists" to achieve a
similar level of competence that would gain them the global
recognition as being world class.
•
• Today India has one of the biggest and very impressive
higher education system in the world, with over 400
universities, deemed to be universities / institutions,
over 20,000 colleges, about 12 million students and
over half a million teachers. Yet our GER is under 13%,
which is less then half of the world average of 2325%. Though the quality of many Indian institutions is
recognized and compared at par with many institutions
of higher learning at global level, yet India has failed to
create a university that can figure among the 100 top
universities in the world.
• The Indian higher education system, like other
developing countries is facing enormous problems of
equity in terms of access to quality education and
equitable distribution of knowledge resources. The
best institutions, teachers, infra-structural facilities,
libraries and laboratories for historical and obvious
reasons are located in cities and major towns. While
thousands of educational institutions elsewhere have a
very poor infrastructure and a scanty manpower that
can hardly impart education not to speak of quality
education. The institutions in rural and remote areas,
which constitute around 80% of the country, are
bereft of quality teachers and facilities.
• Under the circumstances it is hard to imagine
how India can emerge as a knowledge
superpower by 2020, as envisioned by Abdul
Kalam, unless we think and act differently and
come out of the archaic mode of thinking,
teaching and learning.
• As the existing system caters to a small percentage of
population; the challenge therefore is to make quality
education available to a vast majority of people living
in rural and remote areas of the country. One way, or I
may say the only way, to effectively address this
problem is to make judicious use of technology for
teaching and training and create a quality workforce
for generation of educational and technical software;
that can be used within the country for overall
development of the nation and also marketed globally
for boasting the economy.
• In this endeavor CEC has been silently BUT
significantly making a humble contribution in
creation and distribution of educational
content in the form of ETV programmes for
over two decades and in the form of econtent, multimedia, LORs and virtual
classroom operations from the 4 or 5 years.
• The CEC vision envisages to electronically
reach out to a large number of students,
teachers and general public with quality
educational material, so as to address the
issue of access to higher education with equity
and quality. This in turn CEC believes will
contribute to overall vision of making India a
Knowledge superpower by 2020”.
• While CEC / UGC vision envisages and stresses
the importance of quality at par, if not better
than, the world standards, as a hallmark for
growth of higher education, the society in
general, and the teachers in particular are
indifferent to educational television and modern
educational technology. With the result these
programmes, of critical academic importance,
remain inaccessible to a vast majority of the
students who are not able to benefit from these
programmes.
• While the growth of the electronic media (of
radio and TV) in terms of reach, popularity and
variety has been phenomenal, there has not been
a corresponding growth in their education related
usage. The underutilization, due to general
apathy towards educational television, restrains
the educational outcome of the initiatives by
UGC-CEC and the media centres. Otherwise
research is supportive of enhanced educational
outcomes due to exposure to the educational
television programmes.
• This is a transitory mindset that is bound to
change, if we wish to stay relevant to the
students in the coming years and I strongly
feel we have no other choice but to make
proper use of technology for education.
• The easy affordability of IT gadgets with falling
prices and the ever increasing penetration of
electronic equipment, even in the rural areas
of the country, have given credence to the
thought that this revolution can slowly but
surely make a huge difference to India
educationally and economically.
• This is substantiated by the fact that
education is fast turning “borderless” and
“seamless” and most of the authenticated
and validated educational content on the
internet is paid.
• The excessive dependence of today’s youth on
the internet and online sources is an indicator
that educational content in electronic format is
going to be in great demand in the years to come.
The demand will be much higher when the
“digital natives” –the today’s children, grow into
teens. Even the “digital migrants” –including the
present youth, adults and the older generations,
are increasingly becoming dependent, for
knowledge resources, on information and
communication technology.
• In fact, in the field of knowledge packaging the
ICT has created a level playing field between the
east and the west. The educational institutions,
across the world, today are investing liberally in
creating an ICT environment in their campuses.
Computers have become the classrooms of new
age. The entire process of teaching and learning
has gone digital. Amidst all this it cannot be
possible for any one to keep distance from
modern electronic gadgets and machines or shy
away from use of technology for education.
• The convergence of media technologies and
the high penetration of electronic gadgets like
cell phones, computers and television sets
offer enormous opportunities for higher
education. For country like India, with vast
geographical areas, huge rural population and
limited resources for higher education, the
growth and development of information and
communication technologies promise a great
relief.
• So the Indian educational system is going through a very
tough but interesting phase. While equitable distribution
of resources for inclusive growth of higher education is a
matter of concern, competition from institutions from
outside has thrown up new challenge. Under the
circumstances only clever and innovative integration of
information and communication technologies, in an open
and flexible academic structure would help the country to
address the question of equity, access and quality. Given
the Indian experience of using television for higher
education for over 2 decades, it may not be difficult to take
advantage of new technologies to address the new
challenges.
• Despite odds, the endeavor of UGC to make use
of technology for education is making good
strides and the initiatives taken so for hold the
promise of bridging the gap between the
teachers and technology. This will help in
packaging authentic and reliable knowledge and
disseminating the same among the students in
an easy and effective way. This will also pave way
in creating a vibrant knowledge society that may
also become a viable source of income in the
years to come when knowledge determines the
economy.
• Need of the hour is to pool our resources at
all levels. This requires a paradigm shift in
teaching and learning on one hand and the
use of technology to effectively reach
students across the country on the other.
• In the new paradigm the focus shall be more
on e-content development along side the
production of educational television
programmes. While the educational television
programmes through television and live
lectures on specific subjects are disseminated
to the students through various means, the econtent on the same topics shall be made
available freely using all the available means
of communication.
• The telecast again shall not be made in
isolation they shall be integrated with the
classroom involving teachers and the
institutions. The e-content back up, with
constant up gradation, shall be easily
accessible on the websites with vibrant
discussion platforms and blogs. This together
with the involvement of teachers in distant
colleges shall create a healthy learning
environment in these institutions.
• For the quality assurance, which is paramount
for any serious educational endeavour, strict
quality control measures are proposed to be
taken to ensure the “correctness of facts, free
from prejudice and bias”, with stress on latest
information, rich content and attractive
packaging.
The e-content developed shall be properly
evaluated and assessed with the help of experts
and certified by a national consortium, may be
jointly established by CEC and NAAC before it is
telecast or web-cast.
• The new paradigm for higher education and
educational technology envisages blending
the technology with teaching, using a
multimedia approach rather than simple
teaching or broadcast of programmes. While
quality educational programmes, both
enrichment and syllabus based, shall be
telecast using all the possible modes of
transmission, there shall be enough flexibility
for students to access them as and when they
feel.
• With the initial success of Virtual Classroom
operations through Edusat, we can
optimistically conclude that the Virtual
Classrooms, together with other means of
dissemination and the convergence of
technology, promises free flow of educational
content for the use of students irrespective of
their location.
• The successful conduct of workshops and online
courses through Edusat demonstrates the
capability and the capacity of virtual teaching
and training. It provides excellent opportunity to
share the expertise of best teachers and multiply
their reach. But we need to devise mechanism to
attract the best teachers for knowledge
packaging. Presently their motivation level is too
low. We shall link it to their promotion besides
offering a good honorarium.
• With increasing use of cell phones, 2G, 3G
technology and the mobile telephony the
possibilities of distributing educational content
are becoming more easy and speedy.
Additionally UGC Information Network
(INFONET), INFLIBNET or National Knowledge
Networking (NKN) efforts to connect colleges and
universities across the country, can facilitate free
flow of information or knowledge resources,
coursewares and the reference material.
• The paradigm shift in education, from
traditional to e-learning as an integral part of
the teaching and learning process, has already
begun in the west and resulted in the
concept of “borderless” and “seamless”
education, anytime and anywhere education.
The concept is fast seen turning into reality
and eventually giving rise to the
establishment of “Virtual Universities”.
• The CEC and Media Centres with their humble
contribution, expertise and their distribution
across the country provide an excellent
opportunity for India to launch a Virtual
University. The establishment of Virtual
University will overcome the shortcomings of
the distance mode of learning and also help
address the issue of equity without
undermining the quality of education.
• However before we move ahead and cut the
ribbon to launch the Virtual University, it is
imperative to look into issues and problems
facing CEC and the Media Centres.
• It is important to strengthen and streamline
the system. The present organizational
structure of CEC and the media centres and
their governance needs a relook, the content
generation requires a fresh approach, vision
and direction, the staffing pattern that was
issued in 1996 requires to be redesigned to
make it uniform and in tune with the new
requirements.
• The dissemination of educational content is
to be made through multiple channels,
involving all the available modes of
communication, including mobile telephony,
with a built in interactivity and feedback.
• A year or two before CEC, under the direction
of Hon’ble Minster for HRD and Mr. Sam
Pitroda, constituted a committee to address
the issue of Visibility, Quality, Scalibity, and
Sustainibilty of CEC endeavors. The
committee under the leadership of Dr T.R.
Kem and Chairmanship of Fr. George brought
out a detailed action plan that will lead to
establishment of a Virtual University. I feel we
need to take the Action Plan Report further.
• Additionally the CEC should increase the
number of Media Centres and the best
institutions in the country shall be
approached to establish the media centres.
This will help utilize the services of the
reputed teachers for recording programmes
and developing e-conent. If that is done we
will be able to take best teachers to the
students irrespective of their location and
equalize educational opportunities for all.
I will conclude with what Tofler makes us
believe: “that homes in modern age shall turn
into ‘electronic cottages’ and people will move
electronically then physically, the experts of
knowledge also shall commute huge distances
virtually”. Therefore CEC and Media Centres
shall seriously push the agenda of establishing
the first Virtual University of the country.
Thank you
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