ict in education: promotion of inclusive access to quality education in india

8/9/2019 ICT in Education: Promotion of Inclusive Access to Quality Education in India

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Millions of Users

Internet in Asia - 2009

Top 10 Countries

Source: www.internetworldstats.com/stats3.htm

Estimated Internet users in Asia 764,435,900 for 2009Copyright @2010, Miniwatts Marketing Group

China

Japan

India

Korea, South

Indonesia

Philippines

Vietnam

Pakistan

Malaysia

Thailand

50 100 150 200 250 300 350 400 4500


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Foreword

e must remove the digital divide in education

nformation Technology is transforming our world in revolutionary ways. It is changing the

way we communicate, study, work, create wealth, produce new knowledge, find newapplications of knowledge, entertain ourselves, and deliver and access an ever-widening range

of services. It has enhanced the productivity of human labour to unimaginable levels, and

continues to do so with newer possibilities which too are unimaginable. Internet, through which

IT has reduced the world to a 'Global Village', is changing the ways in which people network and

form new communities. It is enabling more and more people to interact with one another in a

multitude of new ways by transcending the limitations of distance, both physically and virtually.

Some of the most dramatic changes wrought by IT can be seen in the area of education. It has

changed the very meaning of "school" and "student", by enabling people to pursue lifelong

learning in practically any subject of their choice. The potential benefits of IT in education for

personal development, social transformation and national progress are simply enormous.

However, we have to ask ourselves honestly: How is India faring in achieving the goal of

Education for All, as measured by the four cardinal principles of Access, Equity, Quality and

Affordability? IT can definitely help us make high-quality education accessible to all, and at all

levels of education - primary, secondary, college and university. But this is still a distant dream

for a vast majority of children and youth in India. IT can also help immensely in the

development of employable skills - both for first-time employment seekers as well as for the

existing workforce that needs training and re-training. But here, too, our performance so far is

dismal. Clearly, the rich-poor and urban-rural divide in Indian society has become pronounced

in the field of education, making a mockery of our claim to pursue the ideal of Inclusive

Development. The situation presents both a risk and a reward. On the one hand, IT has created

tremendous awareness and aspiration in all sections of our society, especially among the youth.

On the other hand, the government and privileged sections of society have failed, largely, to fulfil

those aspirations. This failure can prove very costly for India, just as success can be hugely

rewarding for all.

There is no doubt that a small section of educational establishments in India have benefited

from tapping the transformative power of IT. But how can this achievement be scaled up

quickly, widely and in impact-making ways? What are the impediments in resources, policy and

implementation that need to be removed? How can the enormous power of public-private

partnership be unleashed in advancing the agenda of IT-enabled education and employable skilldevelopment?

In this report, my colleague Dr. Leena Chandran-Wadia has examined these questions with in-

depth research, helped by the contributions of others who share the commitment of the

Observer Research Foundation to remove the digital divide in education and in other areas of

Indias national development. I am happy to present it for wider public debate.

Sudheendra Kulkarni January 2 11

Chairman

Observer Research Foundation Mumbai

I


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Inclusive Access to Quality Education: Tackling the Scale Problem

2

ContentsForeword ............................................................................................................................................................................. 1

List of Abbreviations ....................................................................................................................................................... 4

A model for the induction of ICT into educational institutions in India on a massive scale, to

promote inclusive access to quality education .................................................................................................... 5

Introduction ................................................................................................................................................................... 5

Implementation Plan - Executive Summary ..................... ..................... ...................... ...................... ............... 7

ICT Infrastructure Requirements at Educational Institutions .................... ...................... ...................... ....... 9

Schools ............................................................................................................................................................................. 9

Colleges ......................................................................................................................................................................... 10

Universities ................................................................................................................................................................. 11

Research Institutes .................................................................................................................................................. 11

ICT infrastructure for Open and Distance Learning .................... ...................... ...................... ................... 12

Detailed Implementation Plan: An Integrated Approach to the provision of ICT Infrastructure at

Educational Institutions ............................................................................................................................................. 13

Overall Scope of Work ............................................................................................................................................ 13

The Novelty of the Approach ............................................................................................................................... 15

The Organization ........................................................................................................................................................... 16

Responsibilities of the User Group .................................................................................................................... 16

Characteristics of the User Group ...................................................................................................................... 17

The Value Proposition ................................................................................................................................................. 18

Key Drivers for this Approach ............................................................................................................................. 19

Exciting Ripple Effects ............................................................................................................................................ 20

Financials and Business Models .............................................................................................................................. 20

Revenue Models ........................................................................................................................................................ 21

Role of Governments ............................................................................................................................................... 21

A Representative Pilot Project ................................................................................................................................. 22

Benefits to Stakeholders ............................................................................................................................................. 22

Regulators .................................................................................................................................................................... 22

Funding Agencies ...................................................................................................................................................... 23

Faculty ........................................................................................................................................................................... 23

Students ........................................................................................................................................................................ 24

Researchers ................................................................................................................................................................. 24

Institutions .................................................................................................................................................................. 25

Society ........................................................................................................................................................................... 25

Vendors/Service providers .................................................................................................................................. 25


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Final Thoughts ................................................................................................................................................................ 26

Annexure I Report of the Consultative Roundtable Discussion held at the Observer Research

Foundation Mumbai ..................................................................................................................................................... 27

List of Invited Participants .................................................................................................................................... 27

ORF Participants ....................................................................................................................................................... 27

Report of the Roundtable ........................................................................................................................................... 27

What ails education today? ................................................................................................................................... 28

What are the ICT infrastructure requirements? .................... ...................... ...................... ..................... ..... 29

Why a centralised approach? ............................................................................................................................... 31

Promotion of FOSS and OER................................................................................................................................. 31

Finances and Business Models ............................................................................................................................ 32

Conclusion and Action Plan .................................................................................................................................. 32Annexure II - Suggestions for a representative Pilot Project ...................... ...................... ..................... ..... 33

Benefits of the Pilot:................................................................................................................................................. 34

About Observer Research Foundation Mumbai................................................................................................ 35

Acknowledgments ......................................................................................................................................................... 36

About the Author ........................................................................................................................................................... 36


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List of Abbreviations

AICTE All India Council for Technical EducationA/V Audio/Visual

CMS Content Management System

CSIR Council for Scientific and Industrial ResearchERP Enterprise Resource PlanningFOSS Free and Open Source Software

GER Gross Enrolment RatioICT Information and Communication TechnologyIIM Indian Institute of Management

IISc Indian Institute of Science

IIT Indian Institute of Technology

ITI Industrial Training InstituteIT Information Technology

LAN Local Area Network

LDAP Lightweight Directory Access Protocol

LMS Learning Management SystemsMCIT Ministry of Communication and Information Technology

MHRD Ministry of Human Resource Development

NCERT National Council of Educational Research and Training

NCTE National Council for Teacher EducationNGO Non Government Organization

NKC National Knowledge Commission

NKN National Knowledge NetworkNMEICT National Mission on Education through ICT

NMITLI New Millennium Indian Technology Leadership InitiativeNPTEL National Program on Technology Enhanced Learning

NSERB National Science and Engineering Research BoardOCW Open Course Ware

OER Open Educational ResourcesOLPC One Laptop Per Child

OLPF One Laptop Per FacultyORF Observer Research Foundation

PC Personal ComputerPPP Public Private Partnership

Q&A Question and Answer

R&E Research and Education

SaaS Software-as-a-ServiceSLA Service Level Agreement

UAT User Acceptance Test

UGC University Grants Commission


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A model for the induction of ICT into educational institutions in India

on a massive scale, to promote inclusive access to quality education

IntroductionIt is well known that Information and Communication Technologies (ICT) can expand the reachand quality of education in India1,2 like never before. Recognizing the need to use ICT to help

increase Gross Enrolment Ratio (GER) and launch skill development initiatives across the

country, the Government of India has recently put in place two very important initiatives.

The Ministry of Communications and Information Technology is rolling out the National

Knowledge Network (NKN)3,recommended by the National Knowledge Commission4, which will

provide research institutions with high-speed network connectivity and Internet access at

Gigabit speeds.

The Ministry for Human Resource Development (MHRD) has launched the National Mission onEducation through ICT (NMEICT)5. About 60 percent of the budget of the NMEICT

(approximately Rs. 4600 crores for phase I) is earmarked to provide Internet connectivity to all

the Universities and colleges in the country6. MHRD is also working with State Governments

through their ICT@Schools initiatives to provide computer hardware and software in schools in

collaboration with vendors7. Some of the other key initiatives that are part of the NMEICT are

The National Program on Technology Enhanced Learning (NPTEL) 8, being run in

collaboration with the IITs and IISc Bangalore, seeks to improve engineering

education in India by developing video and web based courses and placing them

in the public domain. There is also support for other content generationactivities such as the creation of training material on ICT and so on.

Sakshat9 - the one-stop education portal - to facilitate lifelong learning, free of

cost.

Extensive content generation activities at various institutions around the

country.

1http://www.planningcommission.nic.in/plans/planrel/fiveyr/11th/11_v2/11th_vol2.pdf Section 1.2.20,

pg 34.2The word education is used here not only to refer to formal classroom -based instruction but also to

refer to education relating to Skill Development, Adult Education and Lifelong Learning.3http://www.mit.gov.in/content/national-knowledge-network.4http://www.knowledgecommission.gov.in/recommendations/knowledgenetwork.asp5 http://www.education.nic.in/dl/MissionDocument.pdf is the mission document of NMEICT. The 11th

plan document (Vol2) also lists the goals of the NMEICT (Section 1.3.61, 62 pg 50) and ascribes focus to

working with state governments (Section 1.2.22, pg 35) on ICT@schools as a sub-mission of NMEICT.6http://www.iiitb.ac.in/t4e09/presentations/NPTEL%20Presentation.pdfPresentation by Prof. Mangala

Sundar Krishnan, IIT Madras7For example, NIIT is working with many state governments such as Tamil Nadu, Andhra Pradesh, Bihar,

Tripura and others to provide services to schools and colleges under the BOOT

model.http://www.niit.com/SERVICES/SOLUTIONSFORGOVERNMENT/ITEDUCATIONFORSCHOOLS/Pag

es/ComputerEducationAtSchools.aspx

8 http://nptel.iitm.ac.in/ Website of the National Program on Technology Enhanced Learning. Theselectures are also available on Youtubehttp://www.youtube.com/user/nptelhrd9http://www.sakshat.ac.in/The one-stop education portal of MHRD.
http://www.planningcommission.nic.in/plans/planrel/fiveyr/11th/11_v2/11th_vol2.pdf%20Section%201.2.20http://www.planningcommission.nic.in/plans/planrel/fiveyr/11th/11_v2/11th_vol2.pdf%20Section%201.2.20http://www.planningcommission.nic.in/plans/planrel/fiveyr/11th/11_v2/11th_vol2.pdf%20Section%201.2.20http://www.mit.gov.in/content/national-knowledge-networkhttp://www.mit.gov.in/content/national-knowledge-networkhttp://www.knowledgecommission.gov.in/recommendations/knowledgenetwork.asphttp://www.knowledgecommission.gov.in/recommendations/knowledgenetwork.asphttp://www.knowledgecommission.gov.in/recommendations/knowledgenetwork.asphttp://www.education.nic.in/dl/MissionDocument.pdfhttp://www.education.nic.in/dl/MissionDocument.pdfhttp://www.iiitb.ac.in/t4e09/presentations/NPTEL%20Presentation.pdfhttp://www.iiitb.ac.in/t4e09/presentations/NPTEL%20Presentation.pdfhttp://www.iiitb.ac.in/t4e09/presentations/NPTEL%20Presentation.pdfhttp://www.niit.com/SERVICES/SOLUTIONSFORGOVERNMENT/ITEDUCATIONFORSCHOOLS/Pages/ComputerEducationAtSchools.aspxhttp://www.niit.com/SERVICES/SOLUTIONSFORGOVERNMENT/ITEDUCATIONFORSCHOOLS/Pages/ComputerEducationAtSchools.aspxhttp://www.niit.com/SERVICES/SOLUTIONSFORGOVERNMENT/ITEDUCATIONFORSCHOOLS/Pages/ComputerEducationAtSchools.aspxhttp://www.niit.com/SERVICES/SOLUTIONSFORGOVERNMENT/ITEDUCATIONFORSCHOOLS/Pages/ComputerEducationAtSchools.aspxhttp://nptel.iitm.ac.in/http://nptel.iitm.ac.in/http://www.youtube.com/user/nptelhrdhttp://www.youtube.com/user/nptelhrdhttp://www.youtube.com/user/nptelhrdhttp://www.sakshat.ac.in/http://www.sakshat.ac.in/http://www.sakshat.ac.in/http://www.sakshat.ac.in/http://www.youtube.com/user/nptelhrdhttp://nptel.iitm.ac.in/http://www.niit.com/SERVICES/SOLUTIONSFORGOVERNMENT/ITEDUCATIONFORSCHOOLS/Pages/ComputerEducationAtSchools.aspxhttp://www.niit.com/SERVICES/SOLUTIONSFORGOVERNMENT/ITEDUCATIONFORSCHOOLS/Pages/ComputerEducationAtSchools.aspxhttp://www.iiitb.ac.in/t4e09/presentations/NPTEL%20Presentation.pdfhttp://www.education.nic.in/dl/MissionDocument.pdfhttp://www.knowledgecommission.gov.in/recommendations/knowledgenetwork.asphttp://www.mit.gov.in/content/national-knowledge-networkhttp://www.planningcommission.nic.in/plans/planrel/fiveyr/11th/11_v2/11th_vol2.pdf%20Section%201.2.20


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Provision of e-books and e-journals, support for development of low-cost access

devices, and other initiatives for provision of ICT infrastructure.

However this top-down initiative of the MHRD, despite being extremely timely and having

adequate scope, is unlikely to address the scale problem. Given that there are over 500

universities, 25000+ colleges and about 150,000 secondary and senior secondary schools (wellover 1 million schools) in the country presently, the task of reaching ICT infrastructure to these

educational institutions within a reasonable period of time is of gargantuan proportions. The

NMEICT is an unprecedented opportunity for capacity-

building in education as well as in ICT, for exploration

of new pedagogies and innovative ways of teaching and

learning. It is therefore imperative to try and leverage

this opportunity to the maximum extent. A key

ingredient that is missing from the NMEICT initiative at

present is the involvement of the User Community in

adequate numbers grassroots level participation offaculty, staff, researchers, and senior students from

different types of institutions. These representatives of

the User Community could be invited to become actively involved in creating and nurturing a

parallel movement for the innovative use of Computers in Education (as opposed to Computer

Education)which would enhance the impact of the NMEICT enormously.

What is really required is a clear focus on the opportunity for capacity-building and on

the value-addition that can be created from these two government initiatives. The latter

includes a push for increased access to scientific computing and the eSciences, for faculty,

researchers and students from a much wider set of institutions. This will enable them to enternew and exciting computing-intensive fields such as computational biology, weather and

climate modelling, and the data-driven sciences, among others. On the capacity-building front, it

is necessary to create a vast ICT-enabled workforce which can help leverage the benefits of ICT

in their own respective fields - not just in science and engineering but also in healthcare,

agriculture, governance and many others.

The vision therefore is the empowerment of Students and Faculty, in formal as well as

non-formal education. Within the field of ICT, students have contributed to some of the most

important advances in information and communications technologies. These include data

compression, interactive computer graphics, Ethernet, Berkeley Unix, the spreadsheet, public

key cryptography, speech recognition, Mosaic, and Google10. Increasingly, we see a trend of

younger and younger innovators. There is now a move in the United States to launch another

student led wave of innovation, supported by the private sector with funds from the Broadband

Technology Opportunities Program11. In India too our young students, who tend to be natively

comfortable with all things digital, must be empowered with free access to broadband and all

the associated tools and resources so that they can make contributions to ICT and to the many

10 http://www.whitehouse.gov/blog/2010/03/25/role-student-led-innovation-killer-apps-broadband-

networksThe role of student-led Innovation in Killer Apps for broadband networks, blog post by Tom

Kalil (Deputy Director for Policy) and Aneesh Chopra (U.S. Chief Technology Officer and AssociateDirector for Technology) from the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy, USA11http://www2.ntia.doc.gov/

The NMEICT is an unprecedented

opportunity for capacity-

building in education as well as

in ICT. It is imperative to

leverage this opportunity to the

maximum extent.
http://www.whitehouse.gov/blog/2010/03/25/role-student-led-innovation-killer-apps-broadband-networkshttp://www.whitehouse.gov/blog/2010/03/25/role-student-led-innovation-killer-apps-broadband-networkshttp://www.whitehouse.gov/blog/2010/03/25/role-student-led-innovation-killer-apps-broadband-networkshttp://www2.ntia.doc.gov/http://www2.ntia.doc.gov/http://www2.ntia.doc.gov/http://www2.ntia.doc.gov/http://www.whitehouse.gov/blog/2010/03/25/role-student-led-innovation-killer-apps-broadband-networkshttp://www.whitehouse.gov/blog/2010/03/25/role-student-led-innovation-killer-apps-broadband-networks


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other fields. An obvious place to start is the classroom where they spend a large part of their

day. While the Telecom revolution has ensured voice connectivity, education and innovation

require access tohigh-speed networks, cutting-edge peripherals, software development kits

and cloud computing services12.

The consultative Roundtable held at ORF Mumbai on May 8, 2010, discussed many aspects ofeducation and the opportunities for value creation thrown open by the coming of the NKN and

the NMEICT. A specific suggestion by the author, of setting up of an organization devoted to

serving the ICT infrastructure needs of the Research and

Education (R&E) community, was discussed in detail. The

organization, which would be not-for-profit, would consist

mainly of educators, researchers and technologists from

various representative educational institutions, as well as

representatives from industry. The mandate of the

organization would be to supplement the efforts of

NKN, NMEICT and ICT@Schools with specificinitiatives for capacity-building among stakeholders

and to explicitly leverage all the opportunities for

value-addition. The organization would also work with industry for the actual rollout of all

services, by providing detailed requirements for software and services, and by conducting user

acceptance tests and overseeing quality control.

This report is based on research conducted at ORF Mumbai and on discussions at its

consultative Roundtable. The list of invited participants and a more detailed report of the

Roundtable is given in Annexure I. As suggested by participants at the Roundtable, this report

provides a detailed description of the model for implementation so that it can form the basis forfurther, informed, discussions on transforming the ideas into reality. The implementation plan

is an integrated approach that has the potential to create a movement, to unleash cascading

changes that can completely transform the practice of education, by involving the larger

community - members of society and all interested stakeholders - and getting it to contribute

towards the effort in large numbers.

Implementation Plan - Executive Summary

The implementation plan describes how the NMEICT can be further supplemented so that

faculty, staff, students and management of educational institutions, throughout the country, can

derive maximum benefit from the generous spending on ICT by the Government. Some of the

key supplements that are required include:

Provision of software for all aspects of learning and for administration of educational

institutions, such as Learning Management Systems (LMS) and Enterprise Resource

Planning (ERP) systems, among many others.

Provision of software in the Software-as-a-Service (SaaS) model, which benefits a much

larger number of educational institutions due to the shared development cost of the

specialized software. Cloud computing and other virtualization technologies can be

12 http://www.whitehouse.gov/blog/2010/03/25/role-student-led-innovation-killer-apps-broadband-

networksText from the white house blog described earlier, which is also relevant for India.

Setting up a non-profit

organization dedicated to

serving the ICT infrastructure

needs of the R&E community

can help institutions induct

ICT quickly and optimally.
http://www.whitehouse.gov/blog/2010/03/25/role-student-led-innovation-killer-apps-broadband-networkshttp://www.whitehouse.gov/blog/2010/03/25/role-student-led-innovation-killer-apps-broadband-networkshttp://www.whitehouse.gov/blog/2010/03/25/role-student-led-innovation-killer-apps-broadband-networkshttp://www.whitehouse.gov/blog/2010/03/25/role-student-led-innovation-killer-apps-broadband-networkshttp://www.whitehouse.gov/blog/2010/03/25/role-student-led-innovation-killer-apps-broadband-networks


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leveraged to create shared data centres that are accessed through high-speed networks,

resulting in huge cost savings.

Appropriate support for management of local as well as shared ICT Infrastructure at

these institutions, in the form of managed services, and supported by helpdesks.

Fulfilment of a myriad of training requirements for users in varied disciplines and at

different types of institutions, by the creation of inexpensive training material and their

widespread dissemination.

As mentioned earlier, grassroots level participation of the user community, in large numbers, is

critical to ensuring that ICT is optimally used in educational institutions to help improve the

quality of education. We believe that this can best be achieved by creating an organization

devoted to working with the users, with the

government and with service providers to

deploy cost-effective, yet state-of-the-art, ICT

infrastructure in educational institutions. The

organization must be representative of the usercommunity it serves. It must consist of

researchers, educators and technologists who

can help educational institutions understand

their requirements and help them induct their

local infrastructure from the market. It can help

disseminate information and knowhow widely

and assist institutions in sharing experiences

with each other. It can also work with the

government, with vendors and all other

stakeholders to commission and deploy sharedinfrastructure in the most cost effective way. All this will ensure that individual institutions will

get the best possible ICT infrastructure, given their budget and their needs, and will put it to use

innovatively in the provision of quality education. Such an approach has the following key

benefits:

Addresses the scale problem by sharing the knowhow (and also the common

software and services) across institutions this initiative has the potential to scale out

quickly to a large numbers of institutions in the country that have little or no ICT

infrastructure.

Provides Inclusive Access - this initiative will serve tier 2 and 3 institutions best,bringing them on board well before they would otherwise be able to do so.

Proactive Capacity Building effort the focus here is on empowering generations of

young students. They will make maximum use of the infrastructure, teach themselves to

a very large extent, get comfortable with current technologies and then innovate.

Deep Commitment to Quality and Excellence sub-standard infrastructure or sub-

critical levels of it will not have the same inspirational value that a Google quality

service would have. The aim here is to provide cutting-edge infrastructure at the lowest

possible cost.

The net intangible benefits from a national perspective would therefore be

Reaching out to the unreached at a faster pace Tier 2 and Tier 3 institutions

The net intangible benefits from a

national perspective would be

Reaching out to the unreached

at a faster pace Tier 2 and

Tier 3 institutions

Faster democratization of

education and opportunities

Increased transparency in all

aspects of advance

administration of educational

institutions


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Faster democratization of education and opportunities

Increased transparency in all aspects of advance administration of educational

institutions

In the following we first describe the Whatnamely, the type of ICT Infrastructure that needs

to be inducted into educational institutions, before moving on to outline the How in moredetail. We believe that full implementation of this plan will produce a transformation that will

fulfil the stated goals of the Government, of 1) Accessand Equity,2) Qualityand Excellence,

and 3) Expansion of education across the country.

ICT Infrastructure Requirements at Educational Institutions

We begin by outlining the details of the ICT infrastructure that is required at the different

types of institutions across the country. The aim is to provide end-to-end (turnkey) services

to all users faculty, students and staff.This will ensure that the users can focus on using ICTin education without having to worry about managing the ICT infrastructure.

Schools

The Hole in the wall experiment13 amply demonstrated the fact that children become

comfortable with technology quickly. They dont need to be taught how to use computers, they

learn on their own. The ability to self-learn is independent of their social, economic and

educational background, literacy levels in English or any other language, ethnicity and place of

origin etc14. Therefore, children from all walks of life must be provided with access to

technology most urgently. Ideally, a school must be provided with the following:

PCs and/or Laptops for all faculty and selected staff.Just as the OLPC15(One Laptop

Per Child) initiative, we should launch a One Laptop Per Faculty (OLPF) initiative all

across the country. These laptops must be supplemented with Data Cards for Mobile

Internet access so as to encourage faculty to explore online educational resources

continuously.

One or more computer rooms with PCs for students, from which they are never

locked out. (These are already being provided in many states as part of the ICT@schools

program.)

LCD projectors and Screens in one or more classrooms.To keep costs low there can

be just one Audio/Visual (A/V) room per school, but since projectors are portable and

screens can even be painted on the walls, it would be best to have them in all

classrooms.

Internet connection in classrooms so that students and faculty together can access

shared resources (text, Audio, Video) as well as content on the Internet during class.

This would require deploying Local Area Networks (LANs).

13 http://www.hole-in-the-wall.com/Beginnings.html outlines the description of the first experiment

conducted in 1999.

14Description of the Hole-in-the-Wall experiment, in NCERTs position paper on Educational Technology.Available athttp://www.ncert.nic.in/html/focus_group.htm15http://www.laptop.org/en/vision/index.shtml
http://www.hole-in-the-wall.com/Beginnings.htmlhttp://www.hole-in-the-wall.com/Beginnings.htmlhttp://www.ncert.nic.in/html/focus_group.htmhttp://www.ncert.nic.in/html/focus_group.htmhttp://www.ncert.nic.in/html/focus_group.htmhttp://www.laptop.org/en/vision/index.shtmlhttp://www.laptop.org/en/vision/index.shtmlhttp://www.laptop.org/en/vision/index.shtmlhttp://www.laptop.org/en/vision/index.shtmlhttp://www.laptop.org/en/vision/index.shtmlhttp://www.ncert.nic.in/html/focus_group.htmhttp://www.hole-in-the-wall.com/Beginnings.html


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Wireless Internet access on campusand a well thought-out policy on mobile phone

usage. In time, mobile phones will become cheaper and more comfortable to use for

educational purposes (bigger screens and full capability browsers).

Domain based email for faculty, staff and students.Also, list based addresses such as

[email protected] ease of communication.

A hosted website for each schoolbacked by a Content Management System (CMS) and

training for selected staff and senior students on how to use the CMS to manage the site

Open Educational Resources (OER) initiative for educational content in which

faculty and students are not only encouraged to re-use educational content created

elsewhere but also encouraged to create and contribute educational content to the pool,

particularly in Indian languages.

Free and Open Source Software (FOSS)in order to keep costs low. This will include

the Operating System, Office Productivity Software, Audio and Video Conferencing

software etc., all with Indian language and localization support where available.

Shared software: individual schools can choose to participate in a shared software

initiative that will cover software for generic administrative needs such as Student

Management, Finances, Examinations, Grading and Results etc., but also software for

Teaching and Learning.

Comprehensive Security Services including protected web-surfing, spam and virus-

free email, access control and many others.

Backup Power Facility for local infrastructure.

In addition, schools can be encouraged to make their infrastructure available, outside of office

hours, for adult education, skill development, or even for an Internet Caf. This will help defray

the costs. Entrepreneurship models can also be encouraged whereby entrepreneurs take charge

of the upkeep of the entire local infrastructure through appropriate business models.

Colleges

In addition to the list mentioned above, which may be scaled up appropriately as needed,

colleges will need the following additional infrastructure.

Intranet - for proprietary content: Not all content created by educators and faculty

need to be freely available. Many institutions will create specialized content that will

only be accessible to bona fide students and staff of the college.

Specialized hardware, software packages and tools:Technology institutions such as

Engineering colleges and ITIs will need local laboratories - LANs to support Servers, PCs,and specialized hardware as well as software libraries, simulation and design tools,

graphics and imaging tools and other support for scientific computing.

Software support for Open and Distance Learning: Colleges which participate in

open and distance learning programs will require appropriate technology infrastructure

support in the form of suitably equipped A/V rooms and appropriate software. Details of

the latter are described below.
mailto:[email protected]:[email protected]:[email protected]


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Universities

Most of the universities in the country today are affiliating universities with many colleges

attached to them. This responsibility immediately translates into additional software

requirements:

ICT support for scheduling and conducting examinations including

management of examination centres; creation, printing and dispatch of question

papers; facilitation of online printing of Hall Tickets; announcement of results

and many other related activities.

ICT support for the management of affiliated institutions including

gathering of financial reporting data online from them and integration with the

accounts of the University.

Student management systems standardised with the help of regulatory

authorities such as the UGC, so that students can transfer, within the university

as well as to other universities in the country, relatively easily.

ICT support to conduct open and distance learning described earlier. In

particular, it should be possible to make niche university courses available to

students in colleges affiliated to the university through web conferencing and

other such tools.

Universities have a lot of physical infrastructure large campuses, buildings etc.,

but they do not yet have scale on-campus i.e., they do not support adequate

number of students on-campus. Given ICT support for maximizing the use of

their physical infrastructure, universities could become more vibrant

campuses supporting many more students. Some examples (partial list) of such

ICT support include:

o

Classroom and Seminar room scheduling software (for optimal use of

classrooms),

o Software for automating the application and admissions process,

o Online payment systems for fees and other payment collection, and

o Local content repositories for management and re-use of courseware

(proprietary) with a provision to share them with affiliated colleges, on

need basis.

Scientists and Researchersadditionally require:

o Software support for organizing conferences as well as for creating a

comprehensive listing of academic conferences and workshops,

o

Software libraries for scientific computing, and

o Access to research journals and databases.

Research Institutes

The premier research institutions in the country do not need much support from this initiative

since they are well-endowed with respect to the type of ICT infrastructure being discussed here.

This is also true for some of the premier teaching institutions such as the IITs, IIMs and others.

These institutions must instead become important resource centres in the Implementation Plan

because most of the expert educationists, researchers and technologists required for the

proposed organization will be drawn from them. Since these institutes are also engaged in

cutting-edge research, this kind of involvement will help build bridges between research and

education at different levels.


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ICT infrastructure for Open and Distance Learning

This is an area where ICT can make the maximum impact quickly. The ability to conduct open

and distance learning programs at will, would empower many institutions around the country

to increase their reach enormously, thus contributing directly to the increase in GER being

sought by MHRD. Moreover, pressing concerns such as the nationwide shortage of teachers

could be addressed by training teachers using distance learning methods.

On 6 April, 2010 a separate brainstorm session was held at ORF Mumbai in order to discuss the

use of ICT in Distance Education (taken to mean both open and distance learning modes). The

minutes of the session are available separately. The requirements for ICT support for distance

education depends broadly on which mode is chosen namely, Synchronous vs. Asynchronous

and also on whether the model of learning is classroom-based (all students are gathered at a

remote location) or individual-based (students are sitting at their own computers, at their

preferred locations).

In the Synchronous mode, lectures are beamed live to audiences. A good example of this is theuse of high-speed networks of the NKN by some of the IITs to

mentor the new IITs. For example, high definition video and

audio are sent across to students at IIT Gandhinagar from IIT

Bombay. In this model, both students and faculty use specially

prepared A/V rooms with two-way Video connections. IIT

Bombay uses a 4-quadrant model consisting of the talking

head (faculty), the presentation (digital) material, the Q & A

session and a video of the remote class. A leaner model,

particularly useful in individual-based teaching, is to utilize

only audio and presentation materials. Web-basedconferencing systems16 typically provide these. These can be

supplemented by recording services, where live lectures are recorded and stored on servers to

allow students repeated access to them.

The Asynchronous mode is generally less expensive because pre-recorded material, either CDs

or DVDs, can be handed out and students can watch them at their leisure. This mode has the

potential to scale enormously. Institutions must, however, have the infrastructure to record

lectures, either while they are being conducted live in a specially equipped classroom or

specifically for distribution purposes using video recording crews.

In either case, Synchronous or Asynchronous, it is best to supplement the Audio/Video materialwith a Free and Open Source (FOSS) Learning Management System such as Moodle 17 for

presentation material, and an appropriate student management system for administration of

the courses.

16 There are many free and commercial web-based conferencing systems. See for example, Dimdim athttp://www.dimdim.com/website/signup_in17A popular, free and open source Learning Management Systemhttp://moodle.org/

ICT and broadband

Internet are considered

as basic infrastructure in

the developed countries.

Optimal delivery of Open

and Distance learning

can only be done through

the extensive use of ICT.
http://www.dimdim.com/website/signup_inhttp://www.dimdim.com/website/signup_inhttp://moodle.org/http://moodle.org/http://moodle.org/http://moodle.org/http://www.dimdim.com/website/signup_in


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Detailed Implementation Plan: An Integrated Approach to the

provision of ICT Infrastructure at Educational Institutions

Much of the hardware, software, services and training requirements are common across

institutions in a certain grouping (example,engineering colleges). Therefore, the knowhow with

respect to inducting ICT is completely reusable across

members of a group. Institutions will benefit from

sharing requirements, documents, whitepapers,

training modules, best practices etc., among

themselves. This would be extremely useful to them

because the knowhow is in fact an extremely scarce

commodity among educational institutions in India

today. Many institutions do not have local decision makers who are abreast of the latest

information regarding technologies that need to be inducted.

Therefore, an organization consisting of educators, researchers and technologists, drawn from

representative educational institutions, would best be suited to oversee the creation and

sharing of knowhow across all institutions. This organization can help select and commission

shared software and services, identify training requirements, make choices with respect to the

technologies that need to be inducted, share experiences and best practices and prescribe

guidelines for standardization and interoperability. This will create a buzz and build a

movement that will generate a PULL for the products and services of NMEICT and NKN. With

the support of the organization, educational institutions will be able to take the initiative to

induct ICT infrastructure instead of having it prescribed to them. In the following we outline an

integrated approach to the provision of ICT infrastructure that can result in large savings in cost

as well as in the requirement for trained manpower.

Overall Scope of Work

Generally speaking, all the requirements at various institutions as well as those for distance

education described in the previous section (being referred to as ICT Infrastructure), can be

classified into the following groups:

1. Local infrastructure(at the premises of each of the institutions)

PCs, Thin Clients, Laptops & Mobiles are appropriately chosen for different

user groups and local Servers wherever necessary. Campus LANs - wired and wireless, backed up by registration software that

monitors all bona fide users and their devices. A useful consequence of the

registration process will be the creation of a Database of Professionals in the

education space, as only they would be allowed access to Campus LANs.

Optionally, this can also be supplemented by Roaming18 facilities between

educational institutions so that genuine collaborators can get more privileges

than simply Guest access at the institutions they visit.

18See for example EDUROAMhttp://www.eduroam.org/which is a secure world-wide roaming access

service developed for the International Research and Education community.

The knowhow with respect to

inducting ICT is completely

reusable across similar

institutions. They will benefit

from sharing requirements

documents, whitepapers, training

modules, and best practices
http://www.eduroam.org/http://www.eduroam.org/http://www.eduroam.org/http://www.eduroam.org/http://www.eduroam.org/http://www.eduroam.org/


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Selected people at individual local institutions must be assisted with the knowhow they need to

commission their local infrastructure needs from Vendors of their choice. For instance, they

must be alerted about the need to build in service and support for the local infrastructure into

the Service Level Agreements (SLAs) that are built into contracts of the Vendors, and educated

on enforcement of these SLAs. All ICT facilities must be backed up by high-quality managed

services so that management does not have deal with problems related to malfunctioning

hardware or software. Users must have access to 16x7 helpdesk services.

2. Shared infrastructure and services

Shared Data Centre Services for hosting websites, mail servers and all

shared application software. This can be done using Cloud Computing and

other virtualization technologies. It will save costs enormously and will require a

much smaller group of people to manage the shared data centre on behalf of

many institutions.

Shared software in the Software-As-A-Service (SaaS) model, hosted at the shared

data centres. Some examples of such software (a partial list) include;o Content repositories that can support free as well as paid content

contributed by stakeholders. The repositories must be accompanied by

appropriate tagging (labelling) and rating systems that allow quality

content to be found easily and quickly;

o Learning Management Systems for the creation of courseware online and

for management of the progress of students (assignment submissions

etc.);

o Student Administration System for handling admissions, collecting fees

through online payments, managing students records, tracking courses

taken, tracking completion requirements, announcing results and so on;and

o Financial software - Accounts and Auditing, particularly with respect to

reporting to funding agencies.

3. Technical support for all shared software in the Managed Services paradigm

using Call Centres as required. This can be outsourced to Vendors who will be

expected to provide support for software and services under stringent SLAs. [As

mentioned earlier, support for local infrastructure must be built into the SLAs of the

providers of the local infrastructure.] Managed Services and support must be

provided for All software provided in the SaaS model above;

Generic services such as email, website creation and hosting, conferencing and

other A/V services; and

Tools for computation, modelling and simulation, graphics and visualization, and

collaboration.

4. Training support for all users (faculty, students, staff and managements) on the

utilization of all application software as deemed appropriate. Additionally, selected

personnel at each institution must be trained to become Systems Administrators of

all local infrastructures, using standardized training modules. Training material canbe distributed in the form of CDs or DVDs or made available on the web. These


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efforts can be supported by workshops and conferences for information

dissemination and for gathering of feedback.

5. High-speed network connectivity, to connect the local and shared infrastructure

and good Internet connectivity for access to global knowledge repositories. It is

extremely important that networks are not under provisioned and can support

several multimedia streams.

The advent of virtualization technologies and cloud computing provides us with an opportunity

to induct software in the SaaS model at relatively low

cost using shared data centres. This is indeed a huge

opportunity. The fact that there is almost no installed

base of software in educational institutions across

India creates a unique opportunity to directly deploy

this cutting-edge technology. Elsewhere in the world,

educational institutions are trying to move towardssuch a shared infrastructure model19in order to save

costs maximally (through software reuse and server

consolidation), earn carbon credits (reduce energy

usage for computers and for cooling) and foster

innovation and collaborative discovery.

Many institutions that have already inducted ICT at various levels may prefer to continue down

their own path. However, they can have the option to get new software, services and training

from the community, if they so desire. The largest beneficiaries of this initiative however, is

likely to be a completely different set of institutions - tier 2 and tier 3 schools, colleges anduniversities - who would otherwise be unable to induct ICT anytime soon due to the lack of local

knowhow. Here the rollout of ICT must be accompanied by a strong human capacity building

effort in terms of training and support. It is important to also mention here that the full

spectrum of institutions - universities, colleges and schools all over the country are candidates

for the provision of services under this initiative. The ICT infrastructure can also eventually be

thrown open to students and educators from the non-formal sector NGOs, individuals and

civil society.

The Novelty of the Approach

The novelty of the approach comes from the following aspects:

1. Involvement of the user community at the grassroots level. We expect that some of

these people will become part of the organization and champion the use of ICT in all

institutions.

2. The integrated approachof providing end-to-end service - including software, services

and training, to all users. The vibrant IT industry in the country can be used to provide

high-quality software and services that will help extend the reach of quality education.

19 http://cenic2010.cenic.org/stream/regency/Cenic-20100309-110644-021.mp4 Ed Lazowska, Bill &Melinda Gates Chair in Computer Science & Engineering, Director,eScience Institute and Chair, Computing

Community Consortium at the University of Washington, speaking on cloud computing.

Educational institutions all over

the world are trying to move

towards a shared infrastructure

model in order to save costs

maximally, earn carbon credits,

and foster innovation and

collaborative discovery.
http://cenic2010.cenic.org/stream/regency/Cenic-20100309-110644-021.mp4http://cenic2010.cenic.org/stream/regency/Cenic-20100309-110644-021.mp4http://cenic2010.cenic.org/stream/regency/Cenic-20100309-110644-021.mp4


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3. The idea of Centralized Provisioning: of planning centrally and rolling out

simultaneously all across the country. This ability to cover geography quickly, thereby

reaching out to institutions throughout the country within a short span of time is critical

to the growth of education at this juncture.

4. The plan to use Cloud Computing and other virtualization technologies to share

resources innovatively, thus reducing costs enormously and minimizing the

environmental impact. India can seek to be a leader in this space, and additionally be

able to harvest the benefits of fostering innovation and improving collaboration for joint

discovery.

5. The use of a widespread information dissemination campaign, coupled with a

strong push towards sharing of knowhow, will generate the momentum that can help

the benefits of this initiative reach the institutions that stand to benefit from it the most.

The Organization

As mentioned earlier, the goal is to help faculty and

students get accustomed to ICT technologies so that they

can utilise them optimally to teach, learn and innovate.

This is best accomplished by constituting a User Group

which is the Voice of the Community. The User Group

must work with the government and with the IT industry

to ensure that users at educational institutions are

provided with comprehensive end-to-end services with

respect to ICT infrastructure. The User Group, working

on behalf of all educational institutions, will oversee thecreation and use of shared infrastructure and facilities

and will also help institutions rollout their in-house

infrastructure.

Responsibilities of the User Group

An indicative list of tasks could include the following:

Provide consultancy and technical support to institutions that are seeking to induct ICT

on campus by creating and sharing whitepapers, reports, requirements documents and

other material pertinent to the tasks at hand. Commission Shared Software on behalf of different groups of users, conduct User

Acceptance Testing (UAT) and arrange for maintenance of the entire software lifecycle.

The important task of UAT is often overlooked when software is commissioned through

the use of consultants, resulting in software that is not user friendly, has incomplete

functionality, and is prone to bugs.

Become a conduit for fresh requests for new software and services from institutions.

Oversee the provision of 16x7 technical support to users and institutions, also in the

form of Managed Services where necessary, with the help of private players.

Negotiate access to important libraries, journals and knowledge repositories that are

hard to secure, for all students and researchers countrywide, at the best prices. Assist institutions with purchasing special purpose software and tools.

The organization must be

representative of the user

community it serves. It must

consist of researchers,

educators and technologists

who can help educational

institutions understand their

requirements and help them

induct their local ICTinfrastructure from the

market.


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Design and coordinate rollout of training programs in association with private players.

Disseminate information aggressively, through organizing conferences, workshops and

other events in order to generate PULL for the software and services - a preferred

option.

Invite support and participation from civil society and donors and coordinate their

efforts by pairing resources up with institutions.

Engage in fundraising to help/pay for the costs of disadvantaged schools/colleges to

embark online.

The opportunity for close coordination among institutions and the potential that exists in

tapping into the expertise of the User Group on behalf of all institutions can result in enhanced

value additions. Some of these include the following:

A vision for the development and growth of Scientific Computing and e-Sciences

nationwide.

A method of creating a Database of professionalsand their expertise in the educationalspace (a stated goal of NMEICT).

The creation of a movement around Open Educational Resources and Open Courseware

(OCW). The most scalable model for educational content creation is to allow the

community to create and share. Open Education Resources20 (OER) is a recognized

movement which seeks to take advantage of our collective knowledge. Wikipedia21is a

brilliant example of how users can become active resource creators. We in India need to

take the OER and the Free and Open Source Software (FOSS) movement forward in

innovative ways and create similar archives for content of various kinds. Moreover,

given that less than 10% of the Indian population speaks English we need to initiate this

kind of activity in Indian Languages urgently.

Characteristics of the User Group

Whilst the general consensus at the Roundtable was for the establishment of an organization

that could deliver on the goals outlined earlier, there was a lot

less clarity regarding the manner in which this organization

ought to be created. The argument for a single centralized

organization is that core policies (for example, promotion of

FOSS) for interoperability and for sharing of infrastructure can

be formulated in a coherent manner. But some at the

Roundtable expressed reservations that an organization such asthis, that was centralized, could become monopolistic. A single

organization is naturally prone to monopolistic tendencies and

this must be actively discouraged. The need of the hour is for an

organization that will act as a facilitator. It may be best if there

is more than one such organization, perhaps one in each state.

The participants were also clearly in favour of creating a non-profit organization.

20http://www.oercommons.org/Open Educational Resources Community21http://wikimediafoundation.org/wiki/HomeThe Wikimedia Foundation and its largest collaboratively

edited reference projects, Wikipedia

Software support for

administrative tasks,

will allow institutions to

become more efficient.

In particular they can do

more with their physicalinfrastructure and enrol

many more students

than they do presently.
http://www.oercommons.org/http://www.oercommons.org/http://www.oercommons.org/http://wikimediafoundation.org/wiki/Homehttp://wikimediafoundation.org/wiki/Homehttp://wikimediafoundation.org/wiki/Homehttp://wikimediafoundation.org/wiki/Homehttp://www.oercommons.org/


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One way to fulfil many of these expectations is to encourage the formation of multiple user

groups, one among each institution or group of users that have some commonality of interest

with respect to ICT infrastructure. These user groups could then contribute members to a

specialist Task Force, a smaller group of people that is entrusted with the responsibility of

accomplishing the consensus goals in mission mode. Ideas, information, knowhow and even

people can flow freely between the user groups and the Task Force. The responsibility of the

user groups is to be the representatives of their respective communities and to be a watchdog

over the Task Force. While details need to be worked out separately, after more extensive

consultations, some key expectations from such a Task Force could be the following:

The Task Force must be professionally managed, focused on the central goal of

coordination (through the user groups) among educational institutions for the creation

of shared software and services.

Although there can be many User Groups, they must all coordinate to select the Task

Force. The Task Force takes over the role of Individual Consultants.

The Task Force is an agency that is primarily building infrastructure, not doing R&D.Therefore, unlike R&D organizations, it is subject to Service Level Agreements (SLAs)

with respect to the quality of service that it provides. Therefore it must use proven

technology and employ people with a different mindset, one that is service oriented and

focused on strict adherence to SLAs.

The organization must be willing to pay competitive salaries as needed, in order to be

able to source talent from the market.

The guiding principle is to Maintain the highest level of QUALITY in all technology

deployments in order to promote excellence.

Ideally the Task Force must be stationed at a University campus so that trainees, interns

and students can work on related projects.

The Value Proposition

The intent is to view this initiative as a capacity building endeavour and to encourage active

participation of stakeholders so that there is plenty of

diversity with respect to the deployment of ICT

solutions. No attempt will be made to enforce uniform

solutions locally at individual institutions. Only the

knowhow and best practices will be shared so thatinstitutions can make informed choices with respect to

selection of hardware and software vendors and other

service providers. The aim is to create a User

Community by using social networking and Web 2.0

technologies extensively, holding regular conferences

and meetings to help disseminate information and to

generate a PULL for the shared software and services. The guiding principle with regard to the

entire initiative is one of complete commitment to quality and excellence from the start.

The most scalable model for

educational content creation is

to allow the community to

create and share. Open

Education Resources (OER) is a

recognized movement which

seeks to take advantage of our

collective knowledge.


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Key Drivers for this Approach

While it is true that the ideas outlined in this initiative overlap in parts with the work of other

ongoing initiatives such as the NMEICT (and to a much lesser extent the NKN), what sets this

one apart is the fact that it addresses the entire scope of the problem it provides a blueprint

for the provisioning of complete end-to-end services. This approach corrects for the lacunae in

the system currently and is therefore likely to render maximum benefits to the largest number

of students and faculty, as well as to funding agencies. The other key drivers for this initiative

include the following:

Providing Inclusive Access - Tier 2 and 3 institutions are likely to benefit the most

because they will get access to state-of-the-art ICT infrastructure much earlier than they

would have otherwise. They will also receive support for creation and consumption of

content in Indian languages which is a long overdue effort.

Addressing the Scale Problem The number of institutions that need to be

empowered is dauntingly large. Through sharing of all knowhow across institutions and

through sharing infrastructure where appropriate, it is possible to quickly rollout ICT

infrastructure and educational content to a large number of institutions in the country

today that have little or no ICT infrastructure.

Building Capacity ProactivelyThe focus, in this initiative, is on training generations

of young students in high schools and colleges. They will be self-learners to a very large

extent and as soon as they become comfortable with the current technologies, they will

begin to innovate and create new technologies.

Making a Deep Commitment to Quality and ExcellenceThe aim is to provide state-

of-the-art ICT infrastructure to educational institutions, leveraging volumes and newer

technologies such as cloud computing to keep costs low. A sub-standard or sub-critical

infrastructure will not possess the same inspirational value for students that a Google

quality or an Applequality service would have.

Promoting Interoperability and Standardization where required Lack of

interoperability, which will inevitably arise if educational institutions are left to equip

themselves with ICT infrastructure on their own, will eventually push the costs higher.

Therefore, it is wise to build in interoperability from the start.

Promoting the use of FOSS and OER for Education & Research This is the trend

worldwide, mainly because it helps keep costs down and allows interested stakeholders

to experiment with source code and with the creation of educational content. It will also

promote entrepreneurship, whereby smaller companies will be created to maintain and

support specific software with localization support (example, Red Hat Linux), for a

relatively small fee.

Providing Opportunity to Leverage many Value Adds: for example, the opportunity

for distributed Content Creation, which will help build a vibrant marketplace for

educational content:

o Access to ICT Infrastructure will enable distributed content creation by all

interested parties including non-traditional contributors such as homemakers

and NGOs,

o Backed by a lightweight moderation and editing system and quick information

dissemination facilities, this will ensure that the problem of shortage of digital

content is mitigated quickly,


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o Educational material can be made easy to locate by linking relevant websites to

content repositories from Sakshat (MHRDs one-stop education portal),

o Searches can be made easier by mandating that the creators of content label

their content appropriately (using tags such as age group, syllabus, language

etc), and

o

Industry players can upload and showcase material (free as well as paid),

thereby allowing them to easily reach out to their constituencies.

Exciting Ripple Effects

Students will innovate in new and unexpected ways.This is probably the single most

important opportunity that this initiative can bring about. India can look forward to its

own versions of companies such as Google, Facebook, Microsoft and more in the future.

Collaborative discoverywill become the norm. At the Roundtable, one of the invitees

described an inspirational example of how a group of 400 young students, under the

guidance of a few senior researchers, were able to sequence the TB (tuberculosis)

genome using mobile phones and Web 2.0 technologies such as Twitter to coordinate

among themselves.

Internet penetration will increase sharply as the demand for Internet Access from

homes will track the growth of Internet Access from schools and colleges.

Frequent Curriculum Extension and Revision will become possible. The initiative will

promote new learner centric approaches which will demand more flexibility and

frequent changes in the curriculum. Since technical difficulties with revising curriculum

will be mitigated by ICT, this will indeed be possible and students will become the

beneficiaries.

Growth of Intranets with reusable and competitive content, student management

systems, distance education support, etc., will enable institutions to accommodate more

students thus increasing GER much faster than it otherwise would have.

Teacher Training programmes, one of our biggest and most important challenges

currently, will become far easier to rollout nationwide , thus contributing to

significant improvement in the quality of education provided by our institutions.

It is important to note that the issue of educational content itself (generation, dissemination,

quality control and standardisation etc.) is outside the scope of work being described here. This

initiative stops at providing the infrastructure that enables experts to create educational

material in a distributed fashion and to share it easily. Despite the fact that only technology

infrastructure is sought to be provided, the desired effect of the generation of a large body ofquality educational content will be a natural outcome, as more people learn to use the

infrastructure, become confidant and start to express themselves innovatively.

Financials and Business Models

On the question of Who will pay for this infrastructure? the consensus at the Roundtable was

that the Government (States and the Centre) must be an important contributor, even if it does

not cover 100 percent of the costs. Operationally, it is clear that there are two separate cost

components: the local infrastructure at the institutions and the shared data centre and softwareservices. The former must be paid for in a User pays model in which the institutions pay as per


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their own technology choices, irrespective of whether they are government-run, government-

aided or privately owned. Governments can make provisions for providing funds to the

institutions in the first two categories. However, payment for shared infrastructure must be

done exclusively by the Government.

Revenue ModelsSince the infrastructure required is extremely capital Intensive, multiple sources of funds need

to be explored to cover all costs. Institutions can pay for

local infrastructure and then recover them through

additional fees, charges for usage of infrastructure after

hours and top-up subsidies. Whats more, students and

parents are likely to be more than willing to contribute

to the additional costs provided it gives them access to

better quality education. Therefore, student

contribution is critical and needs to be carefully

evaluated. Regarding purchase of local infrastructure,here the institutions must directly pay the vendors.

There is an opportunity however, for the User Group to

negotiate best prices on behalf of all institutions, and

this should be looked into. With respect to shared

infrastructure, it is best that the government pays for it.

However, it should also be possible to mobilise funds from foundations, corporate donors and

individuals.

Assuming that a not-for-profit organization is created, it will need to generate funds for its

operational expenses and to pay salaries. An important component of income for theorganization could be membership fees paid by Vendors. So far we have not discussed the role

of companies in the technology and education space that are likely to be a part of this initiative.

While it would be business as usual for them in terms of products and services that they provide

to individual institutions, this ICT initiative would result in a sharp spike in their sales (as

awareness sets in and more and more institutions look to introducing ICT infrastructure) and

therefore it is reasonable to ask them to contribute a small sum annually as membership fees to

the organization (similar to the NASSCOM membership model). Conversely, institutions must

also be members, paying a relatively small fee for the privilege of receiving knowhow, training

and being kept abreast of developments in technology.

Role of Governments

Coming back to the role of the central government, the consensus was that it should pay for one-

time costs of the shared infrastructure namely, the Data centres (one or more, in different states

if necessary) and also for the software development costs. Later on, it should be the endeavour

of the User Group to generate not just its own running costs, but also that of maintaining and

upgrading the shared hardware and software. State governments must provide the necessary

funds to institutions within their states in order to induct local ICT infrastructure as per their

needs.

Another very critical role that can be played by the central as well as state governments is to put

their weight behind this initiative thereby helping it succeed. Through its agencies such as the

UGC, AICTE, NCTE etc., it can help reach out to all the Vice-Chancellors, heads of institutions and

Worldwide there is only one

model of funding education

that works:

education funded in

part by students (fees),

contributions made byfaculty ( consultancy),

donations,

corpus, and

Government.


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faculty, thus helping to disseminate information to all the institutions that are a target of this

initiative. This will help the initiative achieve critical mass quickly.

A Representative Pilot Project

There was agreement among the participants that a representative pilot demonstrating the

utility of all the ideas outlined so far is critical at this juncture. The Pilot will also sensitize all

the stakeholders - the institutions, government, administrators, faculty and other decision

makers and, in turn, bring valuable inputs from them on strategies to take the initiative

forward. The Pilot can be taken up anywhere in the country, depending on which set of

stakeholders come forward.

On the technology side, this will help fix the requirements that different kinds of institutions

may have, provided a representative set of institutions are chosen for the Pilot. The Pilot will

also enable the gathering of detailed information regarding price points and costs towards a

detailed business plan for the full initiative.

A representative Pilot deployment of ICT infrastructure must include a University Campus,

Colleges of different kinds (Arts and Sciences, Engineering, Management), Secondary Schools,

Adult Education programs and Skill Development programs. Further guidelines for the Pilot

project are available in Annexure II. Funding for the Pilot could be sought from one or more of

several sources such as private Foundations or Trusts, the newly formed National Science and

Engineering Research Board (NSERB), the New Millennium Indian Technology Leadership

Initiative (NMITLI) of the Council for Scientific and Industrial Research22 (CSIR), or the

Multiplier Grants Scheme23

of the Ministry of Communications and Information technology.

Benefits to Stakeholders

The ability to disseminate information widely and quickly, through domain-based list email

addresses ([email protected], [email protected]) and through the use of Web 2.0

technologies isa game changer. It has the potential to usher in transformative change through

ensuring better communication and coordination among all stakeholders, including funding

agencies and regulators. The ability to create online communities of practice, with quick

dissemination through email, bulletin boards, etc. will push the speed of learning, research anddiscovery in all areas. Aside from this, some of the other benefits to different stakeholders

include the following:

Regulators

Regulators will have the ability to enforce transparency and accountability norms at all

levels; among Management, Administration, Faculty and even students. They can mandate the

use of shared software for Accounting and Finances that can be viewed online by concerned

22 http://www.csir.res.in/external/heads/collaborations/nmitli.htm R&D scheme to boost public-

private-partnership (PPP) with industry23 http://www.mit.gov.in/content/multiplier-grants-scheme Multiplier Grants for joint R&D with

industry.
mailto:[email protected]:[email protected]:[email protected]:[email protected]:[email protected]://www.csir.res.in/external/heads/collaborations/nmitli.htmhttp://www.csir.res.in/external/heads/collaborations/nmitli.htmhttp://www.mit.gov.in/content/multiplier-grants-schemehttp://www.mit.gov.in/content/multiplier-grants-schemehttp://www.mit.gov.in/content/multiplier-grants-schemehttp://www.csir.res.in/external/heads/collaborations/nmitli.htmmailto:[email protected]:[email protected]


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regulators. They can also mandate that the websites of all institutions carry the following

information (partial, suggestive, list)

Fee structure,

Faculty profiles,

Course structure and course content, Accreditation status, detailed information regarding local infrastructure, and

An online rating system for students, parents and employers of the facilities provided by

the institution.

Vigilance can be achieved through a distributed mechanism by giving students, parents,

employers and civil society a process that allows them to report discrepancies online. Combined

with the fact that tribunals are already in the process of being set up to look into speedy

resolution of complaints, this would result in a system that is more accountable to the

constituency that it serves, a remarkable improvement.

Funding Agencies

Funding agencies will see their money achieving more. The User Group will be able to

leverage the economies of scale, that come from serving a large number of institutions, to

provide more infrastructure and to many more institutions for the same outlay of money.

In terms of transparency in the usage of funds, funding agencies can demand online access to

reports from all institutions in prescribed formats. This can be facilitated by commissioning and

deploying software for the purpose and then mandating the use of this software for financial

reporting by all aided institutions. As more and more institutions start to use it, the value of

shared software increases. Therefore, under these circumstances, it is best that the use of such

financial reporting software is mandated by the funding agencies themselves.

Similarly funds disbursements can be made quicker and more effective . Since the precise

financial situation will now be known online at all times, reallocation of unused funds can be

done quickly between different budget heads

within the financial year, ensuring that funds are

spent on time and for the right purposes. In short,

funding agencies will have an accurate and detailed

picture of the utilization of funds at all times, again

a remarkable improvement.

Faculty

The current situation vis-a-vis shortage of trained

faculty can be resolved only if ICT is used

extensively to achieve this goal, particularly

distance learning technologies, so that faculty can

be trained even while they continue working at

their home institutions. In general, distance

education programs tend to have only limited

success among first-time learners of a subject but

faculty does not fall into this category. They can benefit immensely, partly because they will usedistance learning mode mainly for refresher courses and partly because they are more mature

Distance learning technologies

provide the added advantage that

faculty can be trained even while

they are stationed at their

respective home institutions. Bothtrainers and trainees need not be

displaced during faculty training

workshops. This is a tremendous

saving in time which opens up an

all-year round opportunity for

training faculty, instead of only

summer training programmes.


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with regard to handling the new medium. ICT provides the added advantage that faculty

(both trainers and trainees) need not be displaced during the training programs, a

tremendous saving in time which opens up an all-year round opportunity instead of only

summer training workshops for faculty. Of course, the distance education effort must be backed

up by workshops and demonstration sessions as necessary.

Other benefits include

Faculty gets access to all the training material that is designed for them during office

hours and are not obliged to take time out from their homes.

Faculty and students get access to educational material when they are together in class,

so that more engaging discussions and interactions can take place based on the material

provided.

Many students and faculty may not be able to afford broadband Internet access from

home (there are only approximately 9m broadband connections in the country

presently). Therefore, it is imperative to enable plentiful access for them from theirinstitutions

ict in education: promotion of inclusive access to quality education in india

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