The Hindu Business Line : A fair start

This IT training major is helping students in government schools to get tech-savvy so they run the race from the same starting point as everyone else.

THE powerpoint presentation is neat. It is an aerial snapshot of a small town with rows of houses and wide roads complete with traffic lights! As you watch, the cars on the computer screen start to zip on the roads as the traffic lights blink green. That they turn only green, and not amber or red, is something you would surely discount — perhaps even find amusing — considering that the mind behind the presentation is that of Deepti, a Class 9 student of AP Social Welfare Residential School, Srikakulam, Andhra Pradesh.

This could also explain why NIIT Ltd's Chief Operating Officer, P. Rajendran, has carefully saved the presentation on his desktop and now proudly displays it to his visitors. This, and other such powerpoint presentations on his desktop, are testimony to the company's initiative on IT education in Government schools, which focuses on youngsters beyond the affluent metros, deep into the interiors of the country, in villages you may have never have heard of.

NIIT is stepping up its initiatives for IT education in Government schools. "We earlier had the neighbourhood Learning through Exploration, Discovery and Adventure (LEDA) family clubs which were positioned midway between schools and homes. Here, the kids could learn multimedia content beyond what was being taught in schools. In 1997-98, we started looking at how to bring computers into Government schools in a big way," Rajendran says.

NIIT's computer education movement, introduced for the first time in 371 Government schools in Tamil Nadu in 1999, now covers over 2,000 educational institutions in Karnataka, Andhra Pradesh, West Bengal and Assam.

In Andhra Pradesh, the company is responsible for providing IT education in 663 Government schools, covering three lakh high school students. The Rs 155-crore order, spread over five years, involves the creation of 663 computer classrooms and curriculum. NIIT is also responsible for the selection, training, and certification of 1,326 teachers. The model in other States is on similar lines. In Karnataka, NIIT is providing IT training in 700 schools covering three lakh students. The order worth Rs 148 crore is spread over a period of five years. But what makes the Karnataka case somewhat unique is that 10 villages got power and telephone connections, along with the computer centre, as a result of the IT initiative. Ratkal in Gulbarga district got power connections for the first time. Villages hooked to the telephone for the first time include Sheelnere, Tangalagere, Kotebetta, Channaveeranahalli in Mandya District; D T Vatti and PP Halli in Chitradurga district; and Yerragulain in Gulbarga District. A philanthropic cause? Maybe not. But surely a commercial deal with a social cause.

"There is a great deal of motivation in these initiatives. Specially as the excitement of having a computer around also increases attendance of students in different schools," Rajendran says.

On the whole, the objective is to equip Government school students outside metros with an IT edge that could open windows to future career opportunities. While learning computers at a school level may not be enough to inculcate IT programming skills in a student, the company feels it will give a definitive edge, helping him/her compete with students from cities, thus creating a level playing field for tapping future job opportunities.

"In an environment where computer knowledge has become essential as basic education, offering IT education in schools could equip students with simple keyboarding skills and accessing skill. Computer-assisted learning could make the curriculum more interesting, and the Internet can then be used for providing greater depth to subjects," he says. Even the short-term benefits are difficult to ignore. The company claims that the programme has led to better attendance and improvement in results in schools where computers have been introduced as part of the curriculum. "Through the use of computer-aided education and technology-assisted teaching tools, classroom teaching has become a pleasant experience for the teacher and the student across schools in India," he says. NIIT feels that by the time e-governance projects reach these villages, the children coming out of these schools would be more than ready to usher in online applications. "It could create new job opportunities where a school drop-out with some knowledge of computers can manage kiosks and assist villagers," he says. In the process, a sleepy village gets transformed into a technology centre. However, for this to become reality, the Government will have to push infrastructure in these villages in a big way. "There will be issues of broadband. It is not a burden but an opportunity. Imagine a scenario where broadband players look at these villages as a new market," Rajendran adds. The company is also concerned that the IT training model, which has been successfully tested in these States, is not being replicated fast enough in other States. "Once the model has proved to be successful, revisiting the approach could prove to be time-consuming," he says.

moumita@thehindu.co.in

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