IT education co are keying in a big revolution

MUMBAI: Remember feeling Scolionophobic in your younger days? While not many will remember the term, the feeling — the fear of going to school — is abundantly common.

But the term Scolionophobia — and the feeling — may soon be condemned to lexicographic tomes if a clutch of corporates have their way.

With content that is a welcome — even entertaining — break from the morose, rote-based spiel and teachers more willing to reach out to those slower on the uptake, companies are trying to bring intellectual joy to education.

As a result, content is going digital, quality of lessons are being overhauled, and hi-tech applications and plasma screens are making an entry.

The revolution is not restricted to private schools — in fact, it’s more focussed on the hundreds run by the government.

India’s education stats are deplorable at best:
The Unesco Institute for Statistics says 220 million children go to school in India, the country spends 4% of its GDP on education, and 80% of the schools are government-run, where, at any given point in time, a quarter of the teachers are absent. To boot, computer penetration is a mere 11%.

Not surprisingly, Bangalore-based staffing firm TeamLease says nearly 60% of the 15-30 year olds suffer from some degree of unemployability. That is set to change.

Private education companies such as Educomp Solutions, Everonn Systems and NIIT are taking the public-private-partnership route to both profit and contribute towards improving the requirements of government schools in states such as Andhra Pradesh, Tripura, Assam, Himachal Pradesh and Tamil Nadu, and gradually, everywhere else.

Says Soumya Kanti, president, ICT education, Educomp Solutions Ltd: “Companies are crying hoarse about a talent crunch.

The government as such is more skewed towards promoting higher education, while school education is often sidelined. Hence, private participation in school education can go a long way in improving skills and thereby addressing the manpower needs of the country.”

“To improve skillsets, we can’t just look at enhancing quality graduate and post-graduate education, but also school level education which forms the foundation on which skill sets are built,” he adds.

Susha John, director and chief operating officer of Everonn Systems India Ltd, agrees. “Teacher training and providing technological input will stem teacher absenteeism and aid in making students IT savvy,” he says.

Working through the build-own-operate-transfer (BOOT) route, the three companies are currently catering to five million government school children. According to Kanti, the BOOT route entails a private player getting a contract for a particular government school through a tender process.

“We invest about Rs 10 lakh per school and provide technology and train teachers. The government will reimburse the invested amount on a quarterly basis through a period of five years.”

On completion of the fiver-year contract, the schools are transferred to the respective state governments.

L Balasubramanian, president, school learning solutions, NIIT specifies the sums. According to him, the ministry of human resource development reimburses 75% of the invested amount, while the rest is repaid by the respective state government.

The private players set up computer labs, provide educational software and devise multi-media content.

Educomp, for one, has a team of about 80 researchers, psychologists and educationists working on the teaching methodology, pedagogy, creation of digital content in local languages and methods of delivering the content in classrooms.

The company, which is currently working with over 6,000 government schools across 10 states, is looking at implementing the smart class module in government schools.

“The smart class module uses a plasma screen in classrooms for showing content. It is currently present in private schools and we will introduce it sometime this year in government schools also,” says Kanti.

NIIT, which has over the last eight years worked with 5,700 government schools, is looking at introducing a Math Lab in government schools. The concept, introduced in November last year, is a laboratory that will offer videos, measuring instruments and charts, etc to make mathematical concepts and theorems interesting in government schools.

“Devices like Geometer’s Sketchpad will provide multiple teaching and learning aids to generate interest in children for math,” says Balasubramanian.

Everonn, on the other hand, is convinced that the use of computers will make learning a pleasant experience and also educate students in the basics of information technology.

“As 80% of the 3,156 government schools that we are working with are situated in rural areas, computer learning will prepare students to meet the challenges of the world and channel their skillsets to industry requirements,” he adds.

For successful implementation of the digital content and courses, the companies are imparting training to government school teachers who are on the payrolls of the companies during the tenure of the five-year contract.

“Stretching over a month, we train the teachers in the use of technology as an educational tool, and in the right methodology to impart curriculum,” avers Kanti.

According to him, while NIIT and Everonn trained over 2,00,000 teachers in 2007, Educomp alone trained nearly 2,25,000.

g_priyanka@dnaindia.net