The fact that Indian society has evolved significantly, with technological breakthroughs at the forefront of the shift, cannot be denied. Be it healthcare, education, hospitality, and automobile, amongst others, the emergence of technological evolutions has substantially transformed these industries to a great extent. In terms of education artificial intelligence, virtual reality, augmented reality, machine learning and blockchain technology have changed the way students consume education today. These modern technical innovations have brought education closer to students, promoting their better development.
India’s education market is anticipated to increase at a rapid speed. The growth trajectory of the ed-tech industry in India can be credited to the emergence of modern technological advances. In fact, these new-age technologies have served as a solution for the long-existed challenges in the education system, transforming learning into a more experiential and immersive experience for students.
Challenges in education system: Met by tech-enabled solutions
Demographic Limitations: India is a country with a large & diverse population which makes it difficult to suffice the need of access to quality educational resources everywhere. Rural India still does not have the kind of quality education the urban learners have. This causes major gaps in the education as well as their respective career growth.
Budgetary Limitation: Though Gov is staking significant initiatives but to bring a radical shift the scale has to be high.The kind of investment required to sort the educational challenges is high and the allocated budget is relatively low which affects the quality of education in most of the rural regions of India. It not only creates the disparity among the educational opportunities but also limits their career path.
Infrastructural Challenges: The lack of proper educational infrastructure is a major hurdle in getting quality education for the learners. Insufficient classrooms, lack of basic facilities, proper sanitation does impact learner’s willingness to come to school.
Connectivity Challenges: The digital divide is for real & one of the major challenges in creating an equally accessible educational environment. Lack of internet connections, networks & digital devices restrict student’s ability to benefit from online & remote learning opportunities though in another scenario the access to digital connectivity & resources can absolutely change the picture & can help in achieving the dream of unified access to education for all.
Communication Skills: India with a diversely rich culture has different mother tongue languages. Though English is the universal language, learners from rural & remote villages are yet not proficient with the language and greatly need to improve their communication skill. This limits their opportunities & devoid them of utilizing educational opportunities available across different platforms. Unavailability
content in regional languages also affects the student’s willingness to learn through available resources.
Inadequate Student Teacher Ratio: The fact that we still do not have adequate teacher support for the kind of student quality present across India. Teachers are not motivated or empowered enough to tackle the present day challenges and are still struggling with the ongoing general issues. To sort such issues, digital empowerment, training support & a good professional motivation is highly required. Though the Government has launched no. of policies in teacher’s favor still we have a long way to go.
Addressing these challenges requires a multi-pronged approach involving increased investment in technology enabled solutions, language focused learning content, digital empowerment to bridge the digital divide, inclusive education policies etc which will eventually prompt our country to strive towards providing equal educational opportunities to everyone.
Tech enabled Solutions are a way to go ahead. Digitally empowered classrooms which offer the unique blend of inclusive pedagogical methods including technical tools, resources, animations, gamifications, advanced content & also promote personalized learning & experiential learning. Providing a wide array of cost-effective technology enabled classroom solutions like Smart Classrooms, Virtual learning Solutions, Digital Language Labs etc can create an accessible & engaging learning environment.
Such solutions offer multilingual content & learning material in English, Hindi, Sanskrit along with many regional &foreign languages as well to promote language learning as skill which eventually helps them in confidently learning through different resources & grow language as an additional skill.
Major organizations can also invest in Edtech through their CSR initiative budgets for rural & semi-rural regions of India by providing Digital classrooms & Digital labs.
Technology and education: Road ahead
As per the latest research available, as the education industry expands, we will unavoidably see the development of cutting-edge technologies and teaching approaches targeted at maximizing the efficacy of education. This will not only bridge the learning gap but also focus on maximizing the impact of education in its optimal form.
Article Contributed by Kiram Dham, CEO, Globus infocom Ltd.