Good education for millions of our children, especially in primary and higher secondary levels, has been a cause of concern for all. Several research surveys and dipstick analyses have shown poor learning outcomes for our children. We have to be optimistic that things will turn around and I for one, after having met and talked to several hundreds of various stakeholders, see a lot of interesting things that will happen in the coming calendar year and beyond.
It should not be a surprise that the Covid pandemic has taught us all a few lessons that can be applied for good. I believe that people have started to believe in the adage, ‘It takes a village to educate a child’ and these are the stakeholders who have started to make positive contributions to the education of our children. So what do I think will happen as we look forward?
More access to good content (for teachers and students alike)
Both children and teachers will have access to more good content because of the creation of the Diksha platform which hosts content in several state languages (s). Many players. including my own organisation Akshara Foundation, have shared their content on this platform.
For example, at Akshara Foundation we make our content freely available and in multiple languages. The teachers get to use teacher training content as audio-video modules and in byte-sized formats so that they can refresh themselves on specific topics before they head to the classroom. For children, there are numerous apps like Akshara’s Building Blocks which make learning joyful and help the child acquire and retain conceptual clarity.
All of this is in the public domain and the emergence of a Creative Commons framework of licensing and usage will make a big difference to the availability of content. Thank you Lawrence Lessig and Eric Eldred for pioneering this concept. As we go forward teachers who feel handicapped because of lack of adequate training will have training available electronically on-demand and this will increase their effectiveness in classrooms.
Increased stakeholder involvement
I can see that more stakeholders in the communities, like parents and other community members, elected representatives at the local level, School Development Management Committee members and others who when presented with data on their children’s learning outcomes are more than willing to invest their time and resources in ensuring a better future for their children. At Akshara Foundation, we specifically have the experience of facilitating Gram Panchayat level maths contests where participation has been very good.
Local volunteers to keep it going
Young people in rural communities have a well-developed sense of giving back to their local communities in a practical manner and it is this youth that forms the backbone of sustainability of any initiative that is introduced in villages. During Covid times, they managed to convince people in rural communities to take their vaccine doses. These youth become a vibrant force and a voice for better education.
Blended learning will be a driving force
Technology will play a more significant role as we go forward. With the increasing availability of smartphones among rural populace, and with the key smartphone user willing to share time on the smartphone with the children, we can see that a large number of children will start to supplement their classroom instructions with content available on the Internet.
An innovation using the Diksha platform (digital infrastructure for knowledge sharing) and school textbooks has become useful for children to expand or solidify their learning. Textbooks have QR codes printed in each chapter which, when scanned, takes the student to good content on Diksha and this serves as the perfect supplement to classroom instruction. In the near future, a combination of Teacher+Technology which I would like to call Blended Learning will make its way more into classrooms and in student learning trajectories.
All these trends need to be suitably recognised by all and I strongly believe that the media has a big role in bringing visibility to these issues in a positive manner. Transforming education in the 21st century will be challenging but will also provide opportunities for innovation and advanced technology, which, in turn, will motivate and equip teachers better.