Revelant technology today will leverage our future education

Speaking at forum for higher education this week, NIIT co-founder Vijay Thadani touched upon three biggest issues affecting Education today - access, quality and scale.

Unless these areas are given due cognizance, India may miss the bus on being the largest economy by 2050. The immediate need lies in breaking this glass ceiling using technology.

hadani, in his speech, also referred to power of a vision that can be path breaking exercise. About 30 years ago, some of the key visionaries at NIIT put their heads together and announced that they would like to see one-third of our population technology literate over the next decade. What seemed like a ridiculous thought then has really come true.

He also referred to Prof CK Prahlad's talk on 60th Independence Day of India at New York where he, rather than glorifying the past 60 years, talked of India@75.

His vision got so popular that almost all industry bodies and Planning Commission of India took note of it. But is technology the solution? Can technology alone respond to the tri-challenge of access, quality and scale? It is worth an exploration.

If the example of how technology has been deployed for accessing safe drinking water is any indicator, then technology is definitely a game changer. Vending machines are being used to dispense water pouches.

These are eco-friendly, therefore responsive to global conditions. The quality of the water and the money being collected in the vending slots is remote controlled by servers. Here technology seems to have responded to all three challenges - access, quality and scalability.

Education however is a different ballgame. The conservative thought or belief says that human interface is necessary for teaching students.

This may be true for primary years, but in secondary and higher education many institutions are using technology remarkably well. The phone today acts as a key to access entry into institution, doubles up as a tool to access resources like libraries and computer laboratories, is a identity card and attendance marking gadget and a tool using which test preparation and assessments can be done.

The tests are posted through the mobile and students respond in objective answers by punching keys or voice commands. Teaching of Languages, be it English or any other can be quite effectively delivered through mobile technology.

The benefits of technology in education are countless. It depends on an administrator to decide to which extent they can leverage it. The fundamental concerns of access, quality and scale have to be scientifically addressed in order to help Indian education leapfrog into next generation of learning.    

The writer is an entrepreneur and educationist