Educators being empowered with ICT tools to teach better

GANGTOK, 16 March: The existing approach of “Chalk and Talk” in the education system will be phased out by 2015, with ICT Tools becoming teaching tools as the State government pursues its vision to make Sikkim a 100 percent literate state with its schools dispensing quality education. The focus is on development of infrastructure, teacher- training programmes, and now introduction of new methods of ‘improvised quality education” in all government schools.
The Human Resource Development Department, considering this very important dissemination of ‘quality education’, has, in collaboration with IGNOU and Intel, launched a new programme called “Empowering Educators to Innovate” which is basically using Information, Communication and Technology as a ‘tool’ to first educate the principals and teachers on ‘intricate’ subjects such as mathematics and science using ICT tools.

The HRDD Minister, NK Pradhan did the honours yesterday at a function organized at the Conference hall at the HRDD head office at Tashiling Secretariat. Present were Professor Dr. PT Manoharan, CV Raman Chair Professor, Scientific Education School of Sciences, IGNOU, Secretary, HRDD, R Telang, Director, HRDD, CS Rao, Sharon E Kumar representing Intel and a host of other dignitaries and officials.
In the first phase, the ‘teaching and learning process’ for the teachers and principals who will become ‘master- trainers’ for their school faculty, a total of 15 schools from the East and North districts have been selected. The training shall be of duration of ten days which will take place at ATTC, Bardang and then the second phase for the South and west districts which shall be held at Karfektar, Jorethang.
The training is intended at enhancing the quality of teaching through a “cascading system” which will be taken by three groups of 20 trainees each in each phase.
The HRDD Minister in his address said that the launch of the new programme was a ‘milestone’ in providing quality education to the children of the stat, which, he also stressed, was the main focus of the state government. While stating that the government had already paid all required attention to developing infrastructure, he said that developing quality education to be disseminated to the children should also go hand in hand with the same.
“We have realized that only the outcome of quality education can prepare our children for the requirements for the 21st century and this can only be done through the teachers. The level of understanding of the students has changed but we as teachers now have to match this change, thus skills and change in attitude is the need of the hour”, expressed the minister today.
While stressing that the HRDD was incorporating these very factors to developing quality education in the state, the Minister said that addressing the “weaknesses” in subjects like Science and Mathematics by creating a pool of resources for the future was the main aim of the government.
“We have inadequate teachers for these subjects thus I believe that this programme shall bridge the gap and we shall change with time as the concept of education world over is changing”, he explained.
Earlier, Dr. Manoharan spoke on the synergy of science with technology and development and also of the enormous potential of ICT in the education system. He said that Sikkim was chosen against Bihar for the launch of the programme as the small Himalayan state had ‘sustainable strength’ with command over the English language.
He also said that the “convergence model” which is being adopted to train the teachers shall extensively reach out to much needed students throughout the state.
The brochure and curriculum of the training programme was also released by the HRDD minister during the launch today.