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As Giti, a 12-year old, trudges her way through an arduous 4 km walk to reach her school everyday, the sole motivation for this Gorakhpur resident is the enticement to work on the new black PC, a recent addition at her modest three room government school. Giti and millions of other such students can now dream of working on a PC, thanks to the governments growing emphasis on introducing ICT in school education by earmarking Rs 5,000 crore in the 11th Five year plan.

As the literacy rate grew from 18.3% in 1950-51 to 65% in 2003-04 owing to increase in the number of schools from 0.23 mn to 1.18 mn in the same duration, Indias education system has been grappling with the declining quality of education. In order to stem the rot perpetrating in the education system, the government is now going all out to introduce ICT at the secondary and senior secondary levels.

According to a Boston Consulting Group report, the developed world will have a shortage of 40 mn working people by 2020. This shortfall can be met by a knowledge economy like India, with its predominantly young population. Incorporating ICT in renewing the education system in India is a necessity since India has a large demographic divide. This will help address the gaps in skill development in youth and will make them more employable and entrepreneurial in a larger socio economic system, agrees Rahul Bedi, director, corporate affairs, Intel South Asia.

A silent revolution seems to be on in the dusty corridors of government schools, pan India, as the government makes a concerted effort to bridge the digital divide and ensure that the benefits of ICT reaches right up to the grassroots level. Apart from making the education system more applicable to the demands of the modern day world, ICT can also address some of the key challenges like quality of teachers, infrastructural issues, low relevance in jobs, etc. Our children are not equipped with the right kind of skill-sets which would make them employable candidates in the future. Therefore, we need to make sure that all children are made part of this digitally aware generation and have the same levels of exposure to IT, says Soumya Kanti, president, Edureach (Educomps ICT Division).

It is not an easy task however, considering that the government sector is known to be plagued with issues of red tapism and slow decision making. In addition, factors like lethargy on the part of the school management to upgrade skills and lack of support functions can cost dearly.

Growing Interest
Often derided as merely money spinning entities with no social responsibility, the private sector seems to be showing a keen interest to work with the government. But the government too has not woken up overnight to partner with the private sector.

Introduced way back in 1985, computers in the initial phase of installation were simply set up at school premises, leaving the school management responsible for its maintenance and hardware and software purchase. In certain cases, replacement of a faulty keyboard took as long as eight months, leading to loss of precious training time for the students. Realizing that school authorities were perhaps not the right people to manage such things, for the first time in India, the Tamil Nadu government took the initiative of partnering with the private sector and offered them guaranteed quarterly profit on a BOOT modelwith strict SLA guidelines to maintain IT infrastructure in schools. The model seemed to have worked since even after a change in guard in Tamil Nadu, the new AIADMK government did not make attempts to seek changes in the model, says L Balasubramanian, president, school learning solutions, NIIT Limited.

While many may argue that the corporate sector functions only as a money spinning entity, they should keep in mind that any change in the education system takes a long time to bear fruitsso obviously, companies which are committed to the cause would think above short term gains in business or in terms of branding.

Intel India has been working for the past ten years with various central and state education bodies offering programs in higher education, teacher training, informal education and science promotion, etc. Significantly, we do this in non revenue driven PPP mode, wherein we bring our content and manpower expertise and partner with government bodies to bring in the infrastructure, to jointly implement these education programs, says Bedi. The company runs another such program called Learn Programa community-based program for emerging markets designed to help learners in the age group of 8-16 years. Launched in 2004 in India, the program till has reached more than 87,000 learners in 1,100 centers across 23 states and 4 Uts, in collaboration with Navodaya Vidyalaya Samiti. In states like Kerala and Chandigarh, in addition to NVS, the program runs in collaboration with KSITM and SSA respectively.

We are in the business of creating human resources for the future by upgrading competency and bridging the divide Subramanyam, president, school learning solutions, NIIT Limited	The challenge before private vendors is spreading awareness in the government sector about benefits of ICT Soumya Kanti, President Edureach, Educomp

Microsoft India also makes its technologies accessible and affordable to educational institutions and students through special licensing programs including licensing Microsoft software at approximately 20% of the market cost; campus-wide site licensing program through easy annual or term based subscriptions; programs like PIL for government schools, MSIS (Microsoft Student Innovation Suite) for government-funded student PC programs, student option for students procuring laptops/PCs etc, further subsidize the cost of licensing Microsoft software.

State-wise Report Card
The Indian government had launched its ICT in schools scheme way back in 2004 for providing access to computer education to secondary students. While the southern states had taken the lead in introducing computers in government schools quite sometime back, other states too are finally waking up.

Incidentally, Andhra Pradesh has become the first state in India to offer ICT education to all its 1.8 mn school going children. Covering 5,000 government schools, the state government will be installing a total of 50,000 computing seats in the schools. The YSR Reddy-led Congress government has outsourced the five-year tenure project to leading educational IT companies like NIIT, Educomp, Everonn, Social Computers and Terasoft based on a BOOT model. It requires outsourcers to install, staff and manage the labs, and helps ensure that the labs are installed quickly and performance benchmarks are met. NIIT incidentally has bagged the lions share (worth Rs 172.8 crore) in this single largest turnkey project in the school segment in India and would work across 2,005 schools. The company has incidentally been involved in providing school learning solutions in over 663 government schools in the state over the last five years.

The Karnataka government too has awarded a work order worth Rs 50.27 crore to Educomp for implementation of computer aided education in 708 PU colleges in the state over a period of five years. In addition, the Yedurappa led government also inked a Rs 109 crore deal with Educomp to provide computer aided education in 1,571 schools.

Even as the southern states stole a march over the Northern states attracting IT MNCs a dime a dozen, offering tax concessions and other infrastructure benefits, this time around the tables have turned. All in a matter of 2-3 years, the supposedly backward states like Uttar Pradesh, Bihar, Chhattisgarh, Assam, Rajasthan are now working hard to equip their students with the right ICT skills.

Lauded for the developmental work being undertaken since the change of guard in Bihar, particularly during the Kosi floods last year, the Bihar government along with the Maharashtra government has awarded the contract to NIIT for providing computer and computer aided education to 1.9 mn students in 900 state government schools in the two states. While in Maharashtra NIIT will be training nearly 1.3 mn students in 500 state government schools, about 6 lakh children in 400 schools in Bihar would be taught in the next five years. As per the contract, the company would provide a network of ten computers and one server in each school backed by a UPS and a generator to enable continuous power back up apart from providing highly trained instructors for classes eight to twelve in secondary and higher secondary government schools for a period of five years.

Following in the footsteps, states like Uttar Pradesh and Assam too have given out orders for a total of 2,042 schools to Educomp. Occupying a major chunk of the Rs 120 crore, Educomp would work in 1,401 schools in UP across four zonesLucknow (372 schools), Meerut (380), Jhansi (369), Gorkhapur (280). Right from providing hardware and software, including providing connected accessories, Educomp would also provide one full-time instructor at each school, supplying courseware; imparting training; providing electricity and Internet connection at each school and at the same time monitoring and managing the project during the five-year contract period. On the other hand, in Assam, working with the Assom Sarba Siksha Abhijan, (SSA) Mission, Educomp would be involved in imparting training and engagement of Technical Para teacher in 641 schools.

Close on the heels is Haryana, which is also taking the first steps in introducing ICT in senior secondary schools. The state government has awarded a Rs 18.3 crore order to Educomp to be implemented over a period of three years to over 800 government high schools in 12 districtsAmbala, Bhiwani, Faridabad, Gurgaon, Hissar, Jhajjar, Karnal, Mewat, Panchkula, Panipat, Rohtak and Sonipat.

The Rajasthan Council of Elementary Education (RCEE) has entered into a Rs 21.4 crore contract with NIIT to introduce CAL in 1,672 government upper primary schools in twenty-two districts of Rajasthan within the framework of the Sarva Siksha Abhiyan (SSA). The five-year agreement would involve setting up 1,672 fully furnished modern computer labs with over 5,016 computers, benefiting 33,340 teachers and 8,36,130 students.

Closer home, the New Delhi Municipal Corporation inked an agreement with NIIT for providing information and communications education in 29 municipal schools including 11,500 students from classes six to twelve, for a period of one year initially. As per the engagement, NIIT would train teachers and would also set up computer labs inside NDMC and Navyug Schools to offer training on computer science and informatics practices and offer basic computer education programs for students of classes six to ten.

With this, NIIT will offer ICT education in more than 9,500 government, municipal and private schools across the country.

The latest in line is the Gujarat government which has awarded the contract to the two leading IT education majors, Educomp and NIIT. While Educomp has bagged a Rs 83.82 crore contract to cover around 8,50,000 students from classes 9th-12th across 1780 schools in two zones namely, North Gujarat (905 schools) and Saurashtra & Kutch (875 schools); NIIT would work in 1,870 higher and higher secondary government schools impacting around 9 lakh students; the contract is worth Rs 84.3 crore.

Training Teachers
Even though equipping the students with the right IT skills to make them employable candidates tops the agenda, one cannot brush aside the significance of training teachersthat is, equipping educators with IT tools to enable access to quality content. And challenging them to integrate ICT into teaching in order to replace traditional teaching methodologies.

One such program is Microsofts Partners in Learning under which 3.5 mn educators in more than 100 countries have been trained. In June 2008 Microsoft India announced an investment of $20 mn, specifically for the Indian education sector, and launched Partners in Learning 2.0. The first phase of the project, Shiksha, has till date trained more than 340,000 government teachers in states like Maharashtra, Andhra Pradesh, Karnataka, Madhya Pradesh, Rajasthan and Tamil Nadu.

The reason Project Shiksha has managed to be so successful is that apart from establishing IT academies, where we set up infrastructure for state governments for training teachers on a BOOT model, we have also tied up with state-run district institutes for Education and Training and with educational institutions like Jawahar Navodaya Vidyalaya Samiti, Kendriya Vidyalaya Sangathan, Madarsas, says Rajeev Katyal, director, education, Microsoft India. Apart from partnerships, since Shiksha has a pre-service delivery model and a post-school model, the impact increases.

Intels Teach Program, on the other hand, is a professional development program assisting classroom teachers for effectively integrating technology to enhance student learning. Since 1999 more than 5 mn teachers in over forty countries have been trained, while in India, the program has trained more than ten lakh teachers across nineteen states, has sixty-two teacher education universities, eight SCERTs and central government relationships like NVS, KVS & NCTE.

The Public Private Partnership model seems to have emerged as the most successful model for bridging the digital divide in the country. And ICT in education, especially computer-aided learning, is well on its way to achieve its purposeexercising a positive impact on raising learning standards as well as in reducing dropout rates among children in these schools across the country.

Stuti Das
stutid@cybermedia.co.in

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