Some of the government schools in Karnataka do not provide computer education.
By Riya Sethi
Bengaluru, March 21, 2019: The Information and Communication Technology (ICT) that aims at providing computer education and training students in ICT skills are not being properly implemented in schools. The scheme that was launched by the Karnataka State Government wanted to introduce IT technology in the schools. Under the ICT Phase-1, it was decided that computer education would be introduced in all the government secondary schools. The ICT program has three phases.
The objective of this scheme was to enable students who want to pursue higher education along with the needed skills, to enter the desired work field. The government also wanted that whoever graduated from secondary school should have basic computer knowledge.
Renu Sinha, a government school teacher said, “Teachers do not get basic computer training to teach their students anything about the computer and its software. We don’t even have a computer lab at our school, nor do the students get any IT education. This is hindering their progress in learning and harming their future career prospects.”
In 2005-06, phase one of the project was launched. The cost of the project was 105.26 crores and the central government allocated 31.42 crores for the project. The cost covered all the software’s charges, Internet charges, multimedia equipment, and the teacher’s training. The scheme was supposed to cover 1,571 government schools. Phase three mainly focused on the teacher’s training where all the government teaching staff would be provided with web induction training.
The project is not being implemented to meet the need of the children and in turns fails the aim of the scheme. Only 25.6 percent of the schools in the state have computer education. The schools that have installed computer system do not use them because they are either too old or the teaching staff does not have the skills to train the students.
According to a Karnataka Government report, in some schools students have never even been to a computer class. Teachers are not given adequate training in the computer as they are not comfortable using the device. The Edusat programme (part of the scheme) is not implemented properly because of electrical and battery problems.
