Computers in just 14 pc of 1.3 million schools

Draft ICT-enabled education policy, create ICT-trained teachers' cadre says NUEPA

SAMIR SACHDEVA | February 20, 2010



Only fourteen percent of 1.3 million schools have computers while 86% of these schools have electricity,  Arun Mehta, professor at the National University of Educational Planning and Administration (NUEPA) stated here on Friday.

“We have no statistics on how many of these computers work,” Mehta said.

“In cities like Delhi, Chandigarh  nine out of 10 schools have computers. But in states like Bihar not even one percent of the schools have computers,” he added, "some schools with 50 students have one computer, while some with 300 have just the same. How can this be called providing computer-education at schools?"

Joint secretary at the department of information technology Shankar Agarwal said that the quality of education in schools needed to improve before ICT-enanbled education takes off.

While the infrastructure and quality of education at government is far from satisfactory, finding qualified instructors for ICT-enabled education is proving to be as much of an headache, Mehta pointed out.

“Computers are being used to play games. There's almost zero connectivity and the instructors themselves are quite poorly trained.A separate cadre of teachers for ICT education as well as a comprehensive policy for ICT-based education” he said.

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