Technology, whether it is Artificial Intelligence, Data Science or Machine Learning, cannot replace the teacher but the latter should be equipped with the digital tools to be in tune with the generation next. Technology can also be harnessed to come out fresh pedagogy and students inquisitiveness should be nurtured to fire up their imagination, even while welcoming their ideas.
This was gist of the speeches and deliberations in the ‘Principals Meet – Education Conclave’ organised by The Hindu Future India Club (FIC) and SRM – AP here on Friday. Principals from various schools from within the city and from the districts participated.
First chairman of the Telangana State Council for Higher Education T. Papi Reddy, hit the nail on the head by candidly admitting that governments — Centre and State — have not given importance to education and as it should have been eventhough it is vital for societal development.
Human development
“We should see these aspects only on the expenditure as they play a key role in human development index. The budget allocation for education has never crossed 2% when ideally it should have been 6%. This year we have 7 lakh students going abroad for higher education whereas the poor and downtrodden have no access to education. We have a challenge in our hands,” he said.
SRM Vice Chancellor Manoj K. Arora said being educated means taking into consideration economic, health and mental well being. Curricula design should be based on the technology advancements and focus should be on making children learn by creating such an environment.
Principals of different schools at The Hindu Principals Meet - Education Conclave, in Hyderabad on Friday. | Photo Credit: RAMAKRISHNA G
“Children at schools should be equipped with coding and problem solving capabilities before they join the university. It is time to integrate school education with higher education. In our university, we are creating an innovative and entrepreneurial culture,” he said.
Strategist and author Atul Tripathi underscored the need for the children to be allowed to learn more creatively. If children are taught to use mobiles “properly”, it can help the children since digital technology has become a way of life to expand the knowledge base, hence cannot be ignored.
Personalised education
Former director of the BITS-Pilani Hyderabad V.S. Rao urged teachers to focus on personalised education as every student is unique and the way forward is to look back at our ancient universities where multidisciplinary approach was adopted. It should be a mix of curricula and extra-curricular activities too by reducing the content if necessary to realise the full potential of a student, he said.
Training the teachers since their pupils are good at digital gadgets already, making children do fact check on what comes up on the internet, handling successes and failures, making assessments more relevant were among the many issues which came up for discussion during the lively panel discussion held on ‘Preparing students for new age careers and national education policy’.
The Hindu vice president (Sales & Distribution) Sridhar Aranala, Deputy Editor R. Ravikanth Reddy, Choice Solutions CEO and MD K. Jagannath, HUM Consulting CEO Harish Bharadwaj and SRM–AP director of admissions Y. Siva Sankar, also spoke.
