Description of the issue

A nation’s social, economic and technological development is highly reliant on the education imparted to people in it. It greatly helps in building up a personality, way of thinking and ultimately the actions. Secondary education is the general finishing of the education in India. It is followed by higher education for which a strong secondary education is a necessary requirement. That education will help building a strong base that can be used to study and work in India or abroad and thus is a crucial part of a person’s life (Tubin, 2007).

The essay describes how the Information and Communication technology tools (ICT) are used in the Indian secondary school. Also various policy initiatives taken by the Government of India such as Rashtriya Madhyamik Shiksha Abhyian (RMSA) are touched upon. This policy was put in place to improve the quality of secondary education in India. The essay also looks at a framework that will be able to analyse the policy initiative and will understand what are the nuances, benefits and shortcomings of a particular initiative.

Description of the issue

In more than three years of secondary school experience as a classroom teacher in India, I was very concerned about the quality of secondary education imparted. There was no use of ICT and traditional blackboard and chalks were the medium of teaching. There were no mediums for gaining practical knowledge such as laboratories, practical prototypes, 3D figures etc. and hence teaching some of the important concepts was very difficult and ultimately led to a lack of interest from the students (Yuen, Law & Wong, 2003).

The whole concept of education was only through books and theory and there was no scope of imparting practical education which would help students understand the concept in a better way and also keep their interest and motivate them to pursue any subject further. Moreover, training imparted to the teachers in their professional development was not up to the mark. It is a proven research that with the use of ICT, students are better prepared for the future jobs within and outside the country and also helps in getting better grades. The use of technologies such as audio-visual aids, smart boards etc. help in the improvement of teaching methodology and also keeps the student engaged, interested and motivated to study and also to pursue higher studies as they would find the concepts and learning interesting.

Policy context around the issue and identification of a specific policy initiative

The Indian education system has always been a system with a very weak foundation. With such a inspiring history of academicians that were born in India and made out nation proud throughout the globe, the country needs to keep that bar up and show the world its ability. Education is the base of a nation’s economy and most of the nations in the world have understood this fact (Lindberg, Olofsson & Fransson, 2017). It plays a huge role in moulding the nation’s youth and thus directly affecting the economic and social development.

Policy context around the issue and identification of a specific policy initiative

Secondary education in India is rather more important as the amount of people going for higher education is lesser and thus they start working after secondary education. To be good at that work, they have to have a strong secondary education. Villages in India are nowadays equipped with ICT to support secondary education. Other nations such as US and Australia have been hugely investing to improve their education level. For India, ICT provides enormous support in the higher of better talents, and thus providing better teaching. In 1992, Government of India made quite a few changes in the National Policy on Education (NPE).

The overall idea was to improve the quality of secondary education. Thus, it was divided into High School (IX and X standard) and Senior Secondary School (XI and XII standard). All private, government and religious schools will be able to impart this education and will be backed by either state or the central board of education (Kaur, 2015). Following these modifications, Government of India launched various schemes to improve quality of secondary education in India and improving the facilities in schools. The Central Advisory Board of Education (CABE) proposed in 2004 that the secondary education for the youth should include multiple intelligences and this should help a student to develop holistically and getter a better view of all the subjects. This was among a lot of other policy initiative taken by the board for improving the education sector.

They were aiming to revamp the whole education process for the adolescents and change the way education is looked upon in India. Rashtriya Madhyamik Shiksha Abhiyan (RMSA) (English: National Mission for Secondary Education) was one of the policy initiatives launched in March 2009 after understanding that even India has certain educational challenges that are also witnessed by other nations (Kelvin, Oghenetega & Jackson, 2012). Every country wants its youth to be skilled and able to work both within the nation and outside the nation.

The aim of the initiative was to engage at least 65% of children in secondary education by 2012 by the funding of Government of India and World Bank that supported this cause. Also by 2017, there should a universal access of secondary education for the students. The government wants its youth to be academician in futures and create the best learning environment to assist to reach world-class levels of maths and science and thus support the growth of economy. This is ensure the innovation in both the educational sector and also the economy and is thus a double win.

Ministry of Human Resource Department, GOI (MHRD, department of School Education & Literacy claims the major facilities provided under RMSA are:

• More classrooms that currently available
• Laboratories for better practical education
• Libraries for access to more textbook resources (Judge & McMenemy, 2014).
• Better toilets access
• Resident facility for teachers (especially in remote areas)
• Clean provision for drinking water

In addition to that, the quality of education is evaluated by the following:

• Math, English and Science as the primary focus
• Reforms related to curriculum, teaching and learning
• A maximum of 1:30 teacher to student ratio and if required, hiring more teachers
• Teacher training who are currently in service
• Education enabled by latest ICT and science laboratories

In today’s information age, Information and Communications Technologies (ICT) is on of the most powerful tool and wealth for any nation. The level of innovation in terms of building technology and controlling information makes a nation stronger globally. Every nation does not have equal and similar access and control to ICT. It helps a nation’s education system to improve and become equipped at the global front. However, there is a huge parity between different nation’s access and availability to ICT based on the developed and developing nature of the country and thus there is a difference in terms of how the technology is utilized.

ICT enabled education makes a huge difference in terms of quality of education and thus the growth of children both in terms of personality as well as socially (Marcovitz, 2006). In developed countries, parents invest a lot of money in the education of the children with a futuristic point of view of kid’s development. The more development exists using ICT, the more growth will be there in ICT as the child will be able to improvise better and explore all the avenues of growth.

According to the 2011 census, 72.2% of the population in India lives in rural areas. Although the utilization and development of ICT in India is much higher than other developing countries, still there is huge proportion of schools and children that are not helped by that technology. This is because of such a huge population and scale; it is difficult to bring ICT to every school in India. The rural part of India is suffering the maximum heat and they are not able to access better technology. For Instance, computer education is very less available in rural India. Even if a school has computer, the school co-ordinators claimed that there were no technicians or computer teacher to make use of it and impart knowledge.

Thus, even with physical resources, the students are not able to reap benefits of ICT. The point of start here is the awareness among the students regarding the use and importance of ICT and how it will change their lives. This is necessary to generate interest among the students and motivate them to learn and grow. Through computer education, the awareness and knowledge about the use of technologies will spread and both teachers and students will be aware of the fact that knowledge is available on the Internet and physical textbooks are not required which restricts the pool of knowledge.

On the other hand, many national commissions on education promoted the need of improvement in the training of teachers, especially at the higher and secondary schooling. This will help them in gaining different methods of teaching and ultimately help the students to understand different perspective (Kalita & Mahanta, 2015). Since, the need of the hour is to prepare the students for all kind of situation and needs of the society, different strategies of teaching is very important to build a stronger educational base.

Different teaching styles in films, pictures, videotapes and most importantly Internet should be incorporated in the teaching methodology. An optimum opportunity must be given to young students to interact with the outside world and share their knowledge and broaden their perspective. For instance, participating in science competitions will help students broaden their knowledge and would also develop a competitive nature in them that will help them to grow as a professional.

The next century classrooms must be equipped with all latest multimedia technologies and thus facilitating the right environment for teacher and student’s growth. Whiteboards are much more interactive than blackboards and thus should replace them and undoubtedly, the classrooms should be ICT enabled. A lot of studies have indicated that availability of ICT greatly helps enhancing the teaching and learning process.

From those studies it was clear that the educators i.e. the teachers were interested in using ICT for the education but either due to lack of facility or even if the facility existed and there were barriers such as lack of skills and thus low confidence in the teachers, the use of ICT could not be done in the best way possible (Bingimlas, 2009). This leads to even lesser professional development of educators. Training the educator is also of paramount importance and making them learn new technologies and teaching practices. Also improving the possibility of ICT integration with education and teaching methodology by providing continuous hardware, technical support.

Outline of an analytic framework

The WPR approach or the “What’s the problem represented to be?” by Bacchi (2009) will be used to analyse the RMSA initiative by Government of India. The approach is better as compared to other approaches due to the following proposals –

• Problematisations govern us
• Problematisations should be studied instead of problem
• Problematise (interrogate) the problematisations by monitoring and scrutiny of effects of the problem (Bacchi, 2009, p. 23).

As its said that “necessity is the mother of invention”, similarly policy formation is done due to an existing problem. The whole idea of a policy formation is to rectify a problem and eventually improve the society. These problems must be eradicated not only locally but also with a global context in mind. The representation of the problem is the cruxes of the WPR approach also the outcomes of that representation. The policy initiative can be analysed using six questions. The approach not only answers the question as to how the problem is represented and the outcomes of it, it also puts the problems and solutions into scrutiny and thus analysing RMSA using WPR approach will be a stress test for the initiatives done in the policy and how they affect the problems and what are the outcomes of it.

Conclusion

This paper deeply describes the issue of lack of quality education in India. Information technology plays a huge role in improving the economy of the nation and education if the root to build that. If technology implementation and understanding is strengthened at the root i.e. in the education system during secondary schooling, the strong foundation would to better future. For this, Government of India is taking a lot of initiatives through policy changes, reforms etc. to improve the quality of secondary education in the country. Not only providing ICT, but also making sure that there is optimum support for it in terms of hardware and technical expertise is important.

Also, imparting teaching methodology trainings to the educators is important to spread better perspective in students. Thus, a holistic approach has to be taken to improve the secondary education level in India. The classrooms must be integrated with ICT to enhance the teaching-learning process. This has to be made available in the rural India also where majority of the population resides. Lastly, to analyse the initiatives and reforms, WPR approach can be used as a framework to understand the problems and affect of solutions on the problems.

References

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