The Hindu : Computer literacy drive shows rural kids have IT in them

Online edition of India's National Newspaper
Monday, Dec 02, 2002

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National

Computer literacy drive shows rural kids have IT in them

By Anand Parthasarathy

Bangalore Dec. 1. A month-long drive to take the benefits of Information Technology to two lakh citizens in India and 28 other countries peaks tomorrow, the World Computer Literacy Day. And in the process, the country's number one IT trainer, NIIT, has stumbled upon some revealing facts about the rural Indian children's hitherto unsuspected flair to master complex technologies.

The head of NIIT's Centre for Research in Cognitive Systems (CRCS), Sugata Mitra, who steered a programme to breach the digital divide, discovered that the widespread belief that key computer tools needed to be reworked in Indian languages was a complete misnomer. "Rural kids with no formal instruction, are able to create pictures and animation with the standard Windows software, in a couple of hours, even without understanding a word of English", he told The Hindu. "With their intuitive flair for handling icons and pictures, they master most common PC applications on their own." "Language is not the barrier — it is the challenge to create a PC that will work with little or no electricity in areas of high temperature, humidity and dust", he added.

Dr. Mitra calls the NIIT initiative "minimally invasive education" — and has helped create rural kiosks equipped with such rugged PCs in over 50 locations in India from Almora to Mysore.

The initial experiment was done by making a hole in the wall that separated NIIT's Delhi headquarters from a nearby slum — and placing in it unattended, a PC with a colour monitor. Curiosity soon brought dozens of local children to play with the `new toy'. The experience was used to design a suitable kiosk.

By maintaining positive air pressure inside the kiosk with an air blower, it was possible to keep out dust and eliminate the use of an air-conditioner, Dr. Mitra explained. By early 2003, CRCS hopes to set up 200 such kiosks all over India.

In other initiatives this year aimed at `peeling off' the thumb impression of illiteracy from the Indian citizen,

NIIT has launched since late October, a special 12-hour "Swift Jyoti" IT learning module that encourages students (of all ages) who complete the course to, in turn, impart training to two others. To encourage use of the Indian languages, the institute has tied up with the Indian language email pioneer Webdunia to give away free with each course, a licensed CD with special software called "Windik" to edit text and email, do spread-sheet calculations and browse the Web in English and four Indian languages — Hindi, Tamil, Gujarati and Marathi. Over 10,000 students and teachers in government schools will get the Swift training free.

NIIT is being partnered by some of the country's leading newspapers and magazines, including The Hindu, in spreading the computer literacy mantra nationwide.

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