Sam Pitroda, advisor to the Prime Minister on public information, infrastructure and innovations, has strongly advocated use of all forms technology to impart education in a vast country like India.
“This is the age of information. This is the age of online libraries. So there has to be mobility”, Mr. Pitroda said, while delivering the third Ravenshaw University Development Trust (RUDT) lecture here Saturday night.
Mr. Pitroda, who is also the chairman of National Knowledge Commission (NKC), said all layers of technology should be used for dissemination of information and education.
“As information and communication technology changes, the available tools and applications also change. So we need to harness these tools and look for new models of learning as well”, he pointed out.
Replying to questions from the audience, Mr. Pitroda said the US model of consumerism is no more sustainable and will not work further. This model has lost its shine and we need to change it because it has to change someday, he said asking the youths to actively participate in bringing up this change.
When asked on solutions for different challenges faced by India, the technology wizard said “We need more and more people who will volunteer to work for the poor with less salary. Unfortunately the same is not going to happen with US model of consumerism”, he stressed.
Asking the students to particularly work for ushering a change, he said “In 2010 we need to ask ourselves whether we should carry on with the same old and obsolete processes?
“We don’t need to submit five photocopies of a same certificate attested by a gazetted officer for taking admission into a university. We have to evolve some new systems so that our students can get into universities simply by clicking the mouse of a computer”, he said. Since every process that we pass through now is obsolete and the way we do everything doesn’t make sense, we need to change them, he said.
