Computer-enabled education for 1,000 MP schools from August

BHOPAL, MARCH 12: A tribal child in a remote hamlet in Madhya Pradesh will soon become computer savvy to make optimal use of knowledge ser...

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BHOPAL, MARCH 12: A tribal child in a remote hamlet in Madhya Pradesh will soon become computer savvy to make optimal use of knowledge services, thanks to the innovative `Headstart’ scheme.

Amid a hi-tech fever sweeping the urban metropolis, the project has outlined a novel strategy to introduce a cost effective and judicious mode of interactive computer learning.

Operationalised by the Rajiv Gandhi Shiksha Mission the project will start functioning in 1,000 schools by August this year. The proposal aims to give a headstart to children in the primary and middle schools of the state in terms of computer-enabled education. While the students of middle schools will actually use the computers for learning, at the primary school-level a basic familarity with computers will be ingrained.

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Observing that the project was motivated to inculcate computer education from the grassroots, R Gopalkrishnan, mission co-ordinator, Rajiv Gandhi Shiksha Mission, said the scheme would spell a paradigm shift towards computer enabled education.

The central theme of the project was on how to push the learning frontier in an interactive format of self learning, he noted. Instead of using the computer as a machine, we aim to prudently use it as a platform for interactive learning, he said adding the challenge was to create the right kind of academic software where potential of a sophisticated technology becomes the interactive child-friendly pedagogy.

The state has 6,500 Jan Shiksha Kendras or JSK (cluster resource centres) located in the middle school premises in 48 districts. These kendras would be used to impact computer-enabled education to all children in those middle schools as well as familiarise primary school children in the catchment of the JSK with computers.

In the latter phase as the JSK repositions itself as library or

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Adda” for youth in the after-school hours, it can open up thefacility to the community at large.

Besides arming” every jsk in the state with computer hardwareand multimedia software, the project repositions the jsk as a media unit capable of providing computer-aided education for the children of the middle school in which the jsk is located.

Students of class 1-5 will be brought to the jsk for appropriatedemos which include some computer games. The choice of the games will be carefully made so that the students are enthused to the process of thinking and learning.

It will also familiarise” the primary school children to

Excite” their imagination through simple demos anti games.

The first phase of implementation will cover 6500 jsks in 48districts . The second phase will witness an expansion to 13 more districts for effect coverage. The third phase, when the jsks remain open to the masses after the school hours, will be taken up only after headstart stabilises as an essential component of the schooling stream.

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Teachers with a maths or science background would be trainedacross the state through the decentralised training capabilities of the bhoj open university.

The bhoj open university will be the walk-along companion to theRajiv Gandhi shiksha mission on the headstart programme. It will operated by funds available with the mission for strengthening jan shiksha kendras.