Since digitisation is gaining pace in India like never before, how could education, which is considered as one of the most crucial aspects of human life remain untouched by it?
In what could be seen as an encouraging step forward for country's younger generation, the Karnataka government is considering making text books digital by replacing paper books with Kindle. The move can help nation's young minds in grasping the right skills and knowledge to meet the demands of a constantly changing environment that they're growing in laced with frequent changes in technological landscape. Though this wasn't exactly the government's aim behind considering the move.
The proposal comes into focus just a few days after the Karnataka state government faced wrath for the enormous weight students have to carry everyday to school. While some Indian states have put a cap over school bag weight, there's no such rule currently in motion in Karnataka.
According to Statistics available, Karnataka currently has over 1 crore students. Providing the cheapest version of Kindle worth Rs 6,000 to each of the student will cost the government a whooping Rs 6,000 crore. However, initially, the government wants to test out the programme only in government schools. Further, if the costs saved on printing the textbooks is invested towards providing e-readers, the programme could still be successful pulled off.
Cresta PU College in Mysuru had recently started replacing college textbooks with Kindles as part of a pilot project. The college approached Amazon for the same, which obliged by providing 50 Kindles.
In addition to this, the Joint Admission Board (JAB) has also decided to move the entrance examination for the prestigious Indian Institute of Technology (IIT) from pen and paper mode to a completely online format from next year. According to JAB, which is the policy-making body on IIT admissions, the move will help in making logistics and evaluations for the paper much easier.
Prior to this, the HRD Ministry had given students the option of taking the Joint Entrance Examination (JEE)-Mains online or offline. This year, more than 13 lakh students took the JEE-Mains, with less than 10 per cent taking the online option.
While now seems the perfect time to bring in these changes in the Indian education system, only time will tell if the students are really up for the task.
In what could be seen as an encouraging step forward for country's younger generation, the Karnataka government is considering making text books digital by replacing paper books with Kindle. The move can help nation's young minds in grasping the right skills and knowledge to meet the demands of a constantly changing environment that they're growing in laced with frequent changes in technological landscape. Though this wasn't exactly the government's aim behind considering the move.
The proposal comes into focus just a few days after the Karnataka state government faced wrath for the enormous weight students have to carry everyday to school. While some Indian states have put a cap over school bag weight, there's no such rule currently in motion in Karnataka.
According to Statistics available, Karnataka currently has over 1 crore students. Providing the cheapest version of Kindle worth Rs 6,000 to each of the student will cost the government a whooping Rs 6,000 crore. However, initially, the government wants to test out the programme only in government schools. Further, if the costs saved on printing the textbooks is invested towards providing e-readers, the programme could still be successful pulled off.
Cresta PU College in Mysuru had recently started replacing college textbooks with Kindles as part of a pilot project. The college approached Amazon for the same, which obliged by providing 50 Kindles.
In addition to this, the Joint Admission Board (JAB) has also decided to move the entrance examination for the prestigious Indian Institute of Technology (IIT) from pen and paper mode to a completely online format from next year. According to JAB, which is the policy-making body on IIT admissions, the move will help in making logistics and evaluations for the paper much easier.
Prior to this, the HRD Ministry had given students the option of taking the Joint Entrance Examination (JEE)-Mains online or offline. This year, more than 13 lakh students took the JEE-Mains, with less than 10 per cent taking the online option.
While now seems the perfect time to bring in these changes in the Indian education system, only time will tell if the students are really up for the task.
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