ICT-Based Education Reform to Development

Abstract

Every country grows its own system of education which experiences alteration to meet the experiments of the altering times. Educational system in India is also challenged with several new selections, chances and experiments to ensure that an efficient, liberal and qualitatively greater system of education can be applied at all levels. The report of the Indian National Knowledge Commission confirms a promise to build fineness in the educational system to meet the information encounters of the 21st century and upsurge India’s modest benefit in fields of knowledge. This paper is focusing on the ICT-based education reform to development to the 21st century learners. India is the largest democracy with remarkable diversity among its population of 1.2 billion which makes up about 17% of the world’s population. Almost 70% of Indian population is rural. The adult literacy rate stands at about 60% and this is significantly lower in women and minorities. Education in India comprises of government, government aided and private institutions of which nearly 40% are government. With the population growth rate of 1.5%, there is tremendous pressure on the education system to provide quality education at affordable price and improve the literacy rate. If students are to be productive members of the 21st Century workplace, they must move beyond the skills of the 20th Century and master those of the 21st Century. Teachers are entrusted with mastering these skills as well and with modelling these skills in the classroom. Even in developing nations like India, many students and teachers are operating information and communication technology gears in the form of digital content, presentations, teleconferencing, internet, e-content, e-learning, mobile learning, electronic classroom, podcasts and computer-generated campus to varying degrees particularly in metropolitan cities. The characteristics of the 21st Century classroom will be very different from those of in the classrooms of the past because the focus is on producing students who are highly productive, effective communicators, inventive thinkers, and masters of technology. Increased need to universalise elementary education has resulted in serious focus on elementary education and at the same time rather total neglect of higher education.