THIRUVANANTHAPURAM: It was just weeks before the commencement of the 55th Kerala School Arts Festival in 2015 that K P Noufal took charge as the Executive Director of IT@School project of the Education Department.
During the previous years, the School Arts Festival was known for inordinate delay in announcing the results. It was under Noufal’s leadership that a modern, computer-aided technology was evolved which made the declaration of the results possible within 10 minutes of the completion of events.
“The initiative was widely acclaimed by the participants, parents and the general public. In the year that followed, the 56th edition of the Kerala School Arts Festival was viewed live by people across the world on their mobile phones,” said Noufal, who is presently a faculty of N A M College, Kannur.
While serving as the State Mission Co-ordinator (e-Governance) at Kerala State IT Mission, Noufal spearheaded the Kerala e-district Project under the National e-Governance Plan “It aimed at delivering high-volume citizen-centric services provided by the Kerala government to the doorstep of each citizen. I was instrumental in its roll-out on a pan-state basis. In fact, Kerala was the first state to plan and execute such a project,” Noufal said.
Honour For Noufal
It was in recognition of his contributions that Noufal was conferred with the Kerala State e-Governance Leadership Award for 2014-15. Chief Minister Pinarayi Vijayan presented the award to Noufal at a function here on Monday.
Other Innovations
The Digital Collaborative Textbook was another innovation suggested by Noufal to make the entire learning experience more enjoyable for the students. It was perhaps for the first time in the country that a state came up with the proposal to introduce digital collaborative textbooks in schools.
“The text books were scanned and uploaded without any change from the original format The areas which required detailing were highlighted. The students could click on the highlighted spot and learn more using highly interactive tools, including video and animation,” said Noufal.
During his stint as Director of Vocational Higher Secondary Education, Noufal introduced a student attendance alert app called ‘Third Bell’, besides many other innovations.