Attendees: Mrs Surina Rajan Secretary Education and Finance – Haryana, Mr. Vineet Kumar- Commissioner Higher Education, Mr Vijender Kumar- DGSE Haryana, Mr Mandeep Brar -SSA Director Primary Education, Mr. Dilip Kumar- MHRD, Mr. Rajaram Sharma, Mr Shastri Tumuluri, members of the state education department, NGOs and ESPs.

The second consultative workshop for “ICT in Education Policy – Haryana” was organized on 8th July 2011 at the Haryana Mini Secretariat, Chandigarh. The workshop was inaugurated by Ms Surina Rajan, Financial Commissioner and Principal Secretary- Education, with a welcome address.

This was followed by Mr. Vijayendra Kumar, DGSE Haryana, speaking about the 4 point vision for the state of Haryana based on the ICT in Education vision of the Government of India. The 4 point vision encompasses the following:

1. Taking education beyond computer literacy
2. Vocational and skill building
3. Teacher Education and Professional Development
4. Curriculum Development

Mrs Surina Rajan Secretary Education and Finance – Haryana, Mr. Vineet Kumar- Commissioner Higher Education, Mr Mandeep Brar -SSA Director Primary Education, Mr. Dilip Kumar- MHRD, listening to Mr .Vijayendra Kumar- DGSE Haryana giving the 4 point vision of the state

Ms. Shweta Khurana (K12 – Product Manager, Intel India) conducted the ICT Policy workshop beginning with ICT policy Best Practices from across the world and giving the examples of Singapore, Jordan and Finland.

The session was marked by interactive discussions and feedback from all participants.

Some points of discussion were as follows:

• There should be a continuity in the usage of ICT
• Skill based education is being looked at in a big way world over and being preferred over age based learning.
• Knowledge is no longer constrained to the four walls of a class--- ICT should be used by teachers and students just as pen and paper was used in the past- teachers need to be a step ahead of the students
• Pre service and in-service both need an integrated ICT curriculum. ICT should be incorporated in the D. Ed syllabus- while Quality content can be made readily available on the Haryana website / broadcast site
• When a child is introduced to the internet it is almost as if he is introduced to a whole new world hence just as we hold his hand in the world in infancy he needs to have hand holding even in today’s virtual world.
• Classroom teaching cannot be replaced. To impart ICT training to every student is a real challenge as there are not enough machines or labs for each student to have access to technology. The need is to be aware of how much is available when and where- and to use the tools that are available
• Teachers are not redundant – they just need to be aware of the tools of ICT – MHRD is giving funds to give teachers in service training – all state governments will need to provide for this. Edu-sat has provided the opportunity for teachers to broadcast lesson plans but as of now it is very difficult to find teachers who can even put up a ppt. The need is to bring a change in the syllabus of teacher training.
• There is need to differentiate between ICT and IT education. ICT is to be used to achieve effective teaching. Teacher training content has to be synchronized with empowering the teacher with effective ICT usage.
• If teachers are given ready- made content the teacher becomes a presenter at most- but that need not hold true; perhaps it will just free up time which will help her to share maybe a diagram or a lesson. A teacher can always modify content according to her plans- ICT should not start driving the processes in the classroom
• NCERT published textbooks are now being converted and made available online on the NCERT website. A repository of old Question Papers, audio and video content is also being created for content collaboration. Teachers will be free to utilize this provided they share some content in return. For example if a teacher takes 10 questions from the Resource Bank He/she needs to contribute a question for the bank in return.
• The main focus should be on the students. If we can weave in professional development for teachers to be curriculum developers perhaps we would have more participation and focus.

Following these discussions participants also made suggestions on additions and improvements that could be made to the first draft of the policy document which had been circulated by the Department of Education prior to the workshop

Mrs Surina Rajan Secretary Education and Finance – Haryana and Ms. Shweta Khurana (K12 – Product Manager, Intel India) Participants expressing their views on the ICT policy draft circulated.

Future plans and Summing up of the Session by Mr. Vijayendra Kumar, DGSE Haryana

• Department of Education is tying up on a PPP mode with HCL for their 1000 seater facility at Manesar
• Tender for recruitment of ICT teachers in 2600 schools to be floated soon
• 4 training labs to be developed in each division
• ICT monitoring cell is being set up for training, creation of content, etc.
• Some events on the lines of ICT Mela in Kerala to be organized in the state
• Administrative work by officials and teachers to be more online and computer based
• If the school starts owning the system –parallel certification can be considered
• A person can be offered pre service courses which will give him more career choices Village level entrepreneurship can also be looked at as more than 50 percent drop out and join their family business

Interactive session among participants on the need for Education Transformation

Conclusion: After suggestions and deliberations on topics for the day, Mr. Vijayendra Kumar said that a small core group for developing the policy will be formed and timelines will be set for each activity necessary to form the ICT in Education Policy for the state, so that the same can be released soon.