Soon, textbooks in Mumbai schools may have soft copies

If the recommendations of a team of academicians get the Centre’s nod, textbooks in schools will soon be digitised and education will become ultra-modern.

In order to help the state board reform the education system, the Educational Technology and Management Academy (Etma), a Delhi-based research and development organisation comprising of academicians and educationists from premier institutes like the IITs and IIMs, has proposed and designed a five-step model.

According to an official of the education department, the five-point model focuses on improving the content in textbooks by digitising it. The draft proposal said: “To make textbooks friendlier, it is important to work with content experts, graphic designers, psychologists, specialists in book production, etc.” Sample textbooks will be created by Etma for the state.

It also stated that digital content specific to the curriculum and textbooks prescribed by the state board should be produced in local languages.

“Such digital content must cover the complete chapter - all concepts and elements identified through content analyses,” explained the proposal. The Etma will initially help the states develop the digital content. Later, there will be a full-time body working over it regularly.

Nandkumar, project director, Sarva Shiksha Abhiyan, said, “Etma wants to do the project in clusters of schools in one district. The district for the pilot project in 200 schools has not been decided. We are waiting for an approval from the Centre. The funds have to come from there.”

Even school principals will take leadership classes. The proposal stated, “Principals will be trained in instructional leadership, management of finance, infrastructures and office, human resource management and managerial excellence for quality management and institution building.”   

However, academicians are sceptical. Reeta Sonavat, head of the department for Human Resource Development, said, “There are not many researches done in education. Academicians are not aware of the ground reality in state-run schools. Digitising textbooks is a good concept, but how many of our teachers are trained in computers?”