Empowering young India with digital education

CBSE has instructed affiliated schools to set up digital classrooms from primary to secondary level for every subject

Generations today are calculated at six-year intervals. An 18-year old is conceivably thought to be part of one generation while a 12-year old is part of another. This difference has been validated in light of the rapid use of technology and fundamental changes from the way kindergarten games are designed to the role that technology plays in classrooms.

Digital classrooms have modernised teaching by providing teachers a broad, flexible and agile methodology to streamline their teaching and make it more meaningful. For students, digital classrooms make learning more interesting and enjoyable. Their overall attitude towards learning becomes positive. Theoretical subjects like history and geography become more interesting with visual aids, and overall information retention becomes much higher. Audio-visual learning enables them to understand and retain even difficult concepts better.

The transition from paper to pixel is rapidly growing across the globe, primarily because there's a strong belief that digital classrooms are the way to the future. Over 90% of schools in developed countries like the UK, US and Australia are using technology-enabled interactive whiteboards. South Korea is taking huge steps in implementing educational technology for the younger K-12 segment. The South Korean government is making an investment of about $2.4 billion in K-12 schools to implement digital textbooks by 2015.

Public schools throughout Australia are benefiting from the federal government's $2.5 billion Digital Education Revolution initiative that provides up-to-date technology such as interactive whiteboards and virtual classrooms. Top 15 educational technology companies in the US are discussing how to make digital classrooms a reality in schools across America within the next five years.

In a twist to the traditional game of playing catch-up with the first world, India has been off the block much earlier than expected on this score. Call it providence, or chance or a result of the deeply ingrained value of education in our cultural milieu, our thrust was timely. But are tailwinds in our favour?

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