Education for All in the New Millenium

-Vision for India 2020

Dr.K.Subramanian
DDG(NIC) & IT Adviser to CAG
Office of the Comptroller & Auditor General of India
10, Bahdur Shah Zafar Marg£ New Delhi - 110 002.
Tel: 91-11-3239560£ FAX: 91-11-3234014, 3233426
EMAIL: ksdir@hub.nic.in

Abstract Infrastructure. This necessitates educational

Literacy for all is the Indian vision and the
Government has initiated various plan of action for
implementing the literacy mission. Literacy does
not mean only education but also transfer of
knowledge to improve communication skills and
capability to improve the environment and utilize
scarce resources for the development of the nation
and in turn the masses. The quality of life has to
be improved and the social values are to be
retained. This paper describes one such
conceptual framework for implementing the
education for all in the new millennium vision for
India 2020, covering all levels of education, such
as, mass education, community education, adult
education, primary education, secondary education,
tertiary/university education, continuing education
and education for reskilling, retraining employees
in the service sector. The development of
knowledge in the area of Electronics,
Communications, Computers, Storage, Natural
Language Interface, Satellite Communication,
Antennas and Propagation, Personal
Communication has made it possible for
visualizing a conceptual framework for education
for all by means of using technology, managing
technology and technology based delivery services
and products. The paper also describes major
deviations from conventional education, which is
academia driven to citizen/user driven education.
This conceptual framework envisages three
frameworks; namely, technological framework,
institutional framework and financial framework.
The concept of sharing resources for achieving this
golden goal is the political importance allocated in
the recent years where every Government attaches
significant importance for social and economic
reforms underlining the learning or knowledge as
continual phenomena, which is the backbone for
country s development. Several important
measures have been initiated by the Government
to improve National/State Information
Infrastructure and interface to Global Information
reforms driven curriculum standardization and
cooperative approach in working out strategic
alliances between the institutions, the industry, the
universities and the Government. This paper
suggests a paradigm shift for Government
responsibility to educate the masses to share the
responsibility with industries, private and public.
This paper thus describes one such vision plan for
providing a need based -Education for all, any
time, any where- by suitable integration and
appropriate selection of available technologies and
for cost effective implementation with assured
cooperation of various associated organizations,
industries, and the Government. This vision plan
may be common for all, for implementation in
other countries and the Commonwealth
community at large.
Keywords: Educational Reforms, Curricula
Standardization, Technology, Information
Infrastructure, and Strategic Alliances/Partnerships.
Introduction The technology is a saviour to meet
the demand for learning and create new possibilities of
provision of -Education for all, any time, any where-,
which is an appropriate vision for every country which
recognizes learning or knowledge as a social and
economic activity. India is not an exception.
Though for the last few plan periods, education
assumed a top priority in implementing literacy for all
programs, it is a challenging task before the
Government to cover one billion populations by the
turn of century. The old system -Gurukulam- which
had been followed in the ancient India signifies for the
learners that the acquisition of knowledge was a life
long activity. Every country has got social and
cultural value system, which has to be preserved;
though it is possible to use modern technological
advances towards meeting this goal. Preservation of
values assumes greater significance for a developing
nation. The knowledge islands possessed by the
masses of this country is secluded and not transferred

to all because of various limitations and lack of
communication skills. Literacy does not mean only
education but also transfer of knowledge which is
present within the uneducated system to be transferred
to the society. The implementation of education for
all, any time, any where programs is a great challenge
as it covers diversity of learners, diversity of goals,
diversity of conduct and fulfils the demand for higher
education, and also catering renewal to the demand
retraining on reskilling of employees skills in the
labour/service sector. The learners are separated by
space, time, possessing different learning skills and
surrounded by different environments constituting a
diverse group. What is needed for implementation of
such a vision 2020 programs is a flexible infrastructure,
global/national interactive in nature and affordable for
the people.
Education reforms launched by various countries
including India are based on few features like
globalization of curriculum and universalisation of
education. The four pillars, which constitute the
framework of education, are -Learning to Know-, -
Learning to do-, -Learning to be- and -Learning to
live together-. Because of the economy and social
changes, the demand for learning is on the rise. The
unemployment problem of skilled labour, the
education of unskilled workers, the basic literacy to be
imparted to women and girls, educating and removing
the disparities between migrants and the local masses
catering to the needs of the disabled and non-nationals.
The original concept of providing education for
learning only by schools, colleges, universities and
specialized training institutions is no longer valid in
the present scenario and it is not possible for any
Government to go on creating institutions to meet
educational demands of the learners, which is not
economical and practical. The options before us are
the few.
a)Provision of computerized access to
information bases for all over the
country/world.
b)Broadcast transmission of information and
institutions created by proliferation
of satellite and cable channels.
c)Video conferencing for live communication.
d)Usage of new digitized media like CD-
ROMS.
e)Development and integration of electronic
networks linking computers on a
local/national/global level, cost
effective adaptation and
implementation of minimum
infrastructure needed for putting this
plan to action, creating more
distance learning institutions to
2
meet the demand.
However, technological delivery systems are
distinct from face to face delivery methodologies used
in the earlier learning delivery systems. This
necessitates creation of National/State Information
Infrastructure and integrated to Global Information
Infrastructure to meet the learning demands, thus
providing universal access, creating facilities for life
long learning, adopting user centered learning
technologies, development and deployment of new
learning products, maximizing provincial delivery
technologies, adopting collaborative learning
arrangements.
We should consider technology as an opportunity
for making this vision a reality rather than perceiving
as a threat to the nation in terms of preservation of
social and cultural values. Under the universal values
such as communication, problem solving, working
together, self-learning are the basic needs of the reform
curricula. We should consider technology as an
education reform agent, which can level education
opportunities and result in reduction of gap between
Wealth and Poverty, Health and Misery, National
Unity and Division. This poses a new challenge for
the media selection and making a decision on
appropriate cost effective technologies catering to the
requirements of interactive and user friendliness,
affecting attitudinal organizational changes providing
novelty, friendliness to simulate funding and
innovation, increase the speed of coverage and
implementation, suitable to the local environmental
need. From many of the multi-national company
plans, we can come to a conclusive inference that -
education is now-a-days becoming a big business-.
Many universities in the world are giving importance
to distance learning programs and open offshore
campuses and making education as a business/off-
campus activity.
Government should deregulate education from
their primary responsibility to a joint responsibility and
work with the commercial sector which has got
necessary funds and appropriate chanalising of these
funds with proper vision plans executed will enable to
achieve India vision 2020 objective of covering
education for all, any time, any where. We learnt lot
of lessons from the implementation of various
programs of this kind in different countries such as
creation of multi-media corridors in Malaysia does not
go in the same phase as development of digitized
courseware to be disseminated through this corridor.
Creation of proper attitudinal change and affecting
instructional changes in the design will enable to
overcome this barrier.
Technology has enabled the curriculum reform to

be affected by removing self-serving interest,
domination, superiority and control by breaking the
barrier of the universities/institutions States and
countries, thus paving the way of globalization
educational delivery, higher quality assurance,
specialized experts involvement, reducing the cost in
course media upgradation and distributed
decentralization of the subject expertise.
Above developments, stresses the need for
improvement in the learning content and environment
to meet the learners need than academia needs. The
vision 2020 plan envisages a major shift from -
academia driven education- to the -citizen driven
education-. We have to remove the fear of the
technology replacing the teacher. Unfortunately
technology does not teach but helps in the
creation/provision and delivery of teaching and bring
under one umbrella; essence of print/audit/video
signals, computer-aided instructions, and computer
video conferencing and computer assisted group
learning. Situation today demands a learner centered,
flexible technology driven systems which necessitate
suitable alliance for cost 1sharing economy, learning
resources development, establishment of learners
support centers and creation and maintaining
necessary infrastructure for the course delivery. This
drives change in rural pattern, a flexible and modular
learning to fulfill learner demand, cross sharing
courses, reducing cost of development and risk
reduction and assuring a specific quality. The
funding pattern changes and cooperation of variety of
academic and sharing of staff resources will enable to
meet the new curricula demands stressing the need for
new alliances.
Though the successful experiments have shown
that such partnerships alliances proved beyond doubt a
feasible approach in implementation of such a vision
plan. The examples are the bridge between learning
and participating institutions and management of
credit and award of credits such as the National
Technology University at USA, Federation of groups
of Universities working together for development of
common curriculum such as Open Learning
Foundation of UK, a resource sharing concept of
education brokerage prevalent in Open Learning
Australia have opened eyes of the developing world
that such a vision 2020 for covering education for all is
no longer a dream but a feasible reality for
implementation. What is the need of the hour is mix
up of the three functions such as facilitating a learning
environment, support to learner as a broker and
coordinating the process and development of multi-
media courseware.
3
The new challenges arising out of these kind of
consortium or federation or partnership alliances
approach is the delivery system of the assessment and
evaluation system vis.a.vis credentials and credit
sharing between institutions which are providing such
a service which is visualized that no longer in turn of
the century the institution can work in isolation but has
to fall in line with cooperation of international
alliances and share every resource possible for course
preparation, management, delivery of the components
of education on demand. The age, semester system,
the time bound learning, boundaries of the university
system will all disappear when we implement vision
2020 programs for greater coverage and fulfilling the
newly created user demands which caters to the
learners diverse skills, widely dispersed and available
time for the learning.
It is predicted that in the 21st century, learning
system will witness more private participation
comprising of complimentarily in implementation of
the Government programs and policies,
implementation priority, institutional commitment,
Government-community support, improvising of
organizational structure with restructured and re-
engineered processes and creating leadership in
management. These partnerships in the 21st century
will be driven by students volumes and skill, learners
choice and autonomy, job mobility and people s
knowledge and technology independence and
universalisation of education, thus shaping a strategy
for survival of all, removing the territorial barriers and
still preserving local/social/cultural national values.
This drives us to the choice of right media, integration
of technology and training, sustainability of cost of
implementation and support and tries to meet the
newly perceived needs.
It is conceived and carefully planned and
universally determined that education technology is a
significant supplement and does not replace the human
element and the quality role of the teacher. Education
is not simply enlargement of gross natural product but
also to provide greater peace and compassion. The
nations and the individuals use technology to remove
the disparity between the rich and the poor, developed
and less developed. Increase in use of education and
technology is to be catalytic rather than missionary.
This has to be ensured. The supporting technologies
for making this vision, a reality are the hardware,
software, visual communication, network,
communication, the storage, displays security
technology, information management technologies
and multi and natural language support interface
technologies.
The implementation of vision 2020 plan covers

all levels of education. It proposes a strategic
alliances between universities, colleges, schools,
industry houses, subject experts, cable operators,
communication service providers etc, the alliances and
partnerships are multi-level to reduce Government
dependency on funding. Multi-communication
technologies are to be used. The integrated mix of
available technologies such as, Satellite, ISDN,
Wireless in local loops, LEOS (iridium satellites),
Mobile and Personal Communication Services. India
should create certain common resources facilities like
studio; media centers for cost effective management of
IT resources. Digital Jukeboxes and DVDs should
be used for interactive two- way video/audio systems
for learner-expert interaction. This necessitates
creation of a National Digital Learning Laboratory and
also authorization of a National Certifying Agency for
the Digital Learning Technologies and Digital
courseware. There should be a creation of national
archives and national media center for digital
courseware which are shared and integrated to the
information infrastructure created for affecting
education for all programs. This will necessitate
cable-telephone for integration and wireless
information system, technology adaptation along with
integrating of LAN, MAN, WAN technologies, thus
facilitating students from any university or institution
to log into digital warehouse and start his learning
exercises for a nominal charge.
ACKNOWLEDGEMENT
The author wishes to acknowledge the support
extended to him during his visiting assignment for the
preparation of project -Education on demand- for
Japan under the auspicious of Ministry of Education at
National Institute of Multi-Media Education, Japan. It
is also acknowledged the encouragement given by
Mr.Takashi Sakamoto, Director General of National
Institute of Multi-Media Education, Japan, under
whose guidance, the author has worked on the
conceptual framework for -EOD for Japan-. -- The
author also wishes to acknowledge the support and
encouragement and vision plans executed by Special
Secretary and Director General, National Informatics
Center in creation of Government information
infrastructure such as NICNET.
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Biography
Dr.K.Subramanian holds a B.Sc degree
from Madras University and B.E., M.E.
and Ph.D from Indian Institute of
Science, Bangalore and at present is
one of the Deputy Director General at
National Informatics Centre, New Delhi
and Adviser(IT) to CAG of India. He
has been associated with planning and
implementation of major Information
Technology projects of Railways,
Police, Immigration, Passports & Visas,
Banks, Reserve Bank of India and
coordinating the computerisation of
Finance and Audit functions of Central
and State Governments.
He is a fellow of IETE, National
Telematics Forum, Indian Science
6
Association, Indian Institute of Standards
Engineers and Senior Member of IEEE,
(USA), AIMA, EDPAA (USA), and a Senior
Life Member of Computer Society India. He
has served as a Panel Member in some of UN
Technological Committees, as well as,
National and International Working Groups.
He has also served as Indian Representative
in the International Federation for
Information Processing (IFIP), TC -11 and
currently the Chairman of Bureau of In dian
Standards LTD-38 ¨Committee on
Information Security and Member of other
Technical Committees of BIS.
He is also a Visiting Professor at National
Institute for Multimedia Education, Japan and
made a report on -Education