After working with Google India for wider adoption of internet safety in schools two years ago, Goa education agencies will implement another project to train computer, information and communication technology school and higher secondary teachers in new open-source software applications for cyber security integration.
The State Board of Secondary and Higher Secondary Education and Goa State Council Educational Research and Training (GSCERT) have decided to begin the second programme with over 650 computer teachers from December 4 to 18, Mr. Ajay Jadhav, Board of Study member and coordinator of the first project with Google, said on Friday. The cyber security training syllabus has been worked out and 18 resource persons are ready for the project.
So far there is no outside agency involved and by April 2019, all computer teachers from Class IX to XII will be trained with the help of GSCERT, Mr. Jadhav said.
Sources in the State Education said that Goa must be the second, after Kerala, to run such a open-source software training programme for computer teachers in schools.
In the first programme, a new syllabus under “computer Literacy and Awareness” for computer teachers of Class IX to XII was launched. Mr. Jadhav, who was also convener of Board of Studies of IT, took the help of the Goa IT Education Group to make the programme more broad-based.
At the same time, Google also approached the State government with its offer to partner and sponsor the integration of internet safety curriculum. Google also worked with Kerala and Telangana, after its partnership with the National Council of Educational Research and Training.
The programme was spread over six months and nearly 135 to 150 higher Secondary computer teachers were trained in Linux in depth, Mr. Jadhav said. Goa University’s Computer and IT Department also participated in the programme.
Goa Director of Education Gajanan P. Bhat disclosed that Google had conducted training on the usage of Google Drive and associated features two years ago, but Goa Education was not currently implementing any project with them.
