Education
Education in India has seen a multitude of transformations in terms of policies and methods of learning and assessment in recent times. Studies suggest that achieving universal access up to elementary level with almost 250 million school-going children and 9.4 million teachers in India, does not ensure an increase in learning. Following is an insight into the past initiatives and recent upcoming methods being adopted for achieving higher rates of literacy.
The Ministry of Education launched the National Initiative for Proficiency in Reading with Understanding and Numeracy (NIPUN) in July 2021 to ensure that every child achieves desired learning competencies in reading, writing, and numeracy by the end of Grade 3, by 2026-27. (NIPUN Bharat Guidelines, 2021). At the state level, the ‘Saksham Haryana’ initiated in June 2017 to ensure grade-level competency of 80% of students in government elementary and middle schools, declared 90% of the blocks in Haryana as ‘Saksham’ by 2019. (Sharan et al, 2020). Online learning portals like ‘Ghar se Padhao’ for elementary learning; ‘Umeed’ for career counselling; ‘Diksha’ for Teacher Training & Content Repository; & ‘Avsar’ for continued learning during the COVID19 lockdown contributed majorly to this achievement (Saksham Haryana). A similar initiative by the West Bengal government supported by UNICEF ‘Shishu Aloy’ in 2015 was aimed to strengthen a healthy and educated child population activity-based and age-appropriate structured preschool curriculum. 26404 Anganwadi centers today function as "Shishu Aloy” benefitting more than 3 lakh children (Ghosh Lipi, 2021).
Besides policies, there have also been curriculum innovations for sustainable development in higher education. Indian universities adopted syllabi that integrated Indian and western approaches for their students to be more confident in demanding a free and empowered nation in the pre-& post-independence era. However, as environmental concerns became crucial, the declaration of the UN of 2005-2014 as the Decade of Education for Sustainable Development (DESD) was well adopted by India to encourage responsible citizenry through a transformative curriculum. The Supreme Court mandated the incorporation of Environmental Education (EE) and integration of sustainability in rural development. Consequently, the University Grants Commission (UGC) was directed to build the capacity of the teachers to be potential drivers of sustainable development. Colleges & institutes have thus successfully integrated Climate change and sustainable development, rural development via campus practice, and student-led projects in their curricula (Chhokar, Kiran Banga, 2010).
Discourses concerning innovation in education are incomplete without ‘EdTech’ the term that describes a wide array of teaching-learning software that is increasingly being used in classrooms. The ultimate goal is to enable an improved learning environment and increase student engagement. However remote learning has revealed a lot of inequities that are hidden by students not having access to gadgets or internet facilities. The Radio Literacy models in Uganda have proven effective to cater to such limitations. Radio is a cost-effective tool, with high potential in inaccessible areas with low resources, minimal connectivity, and energy infrastructure. The ‘EdTech Hub’ is exploring a new radio teaching model that is focused on local language instructions and is experimenting with adding human factors. (EdTech Hub, 2021).As we aspire to create equitable learning environments, it is imperative to be flexible with students, understanding their needs and meeting them where they are, in addition to the technology we choose.