An ICT enabled platform – Lokavidya

Abstract

With one of the biggest education system in the world, India has the largest population attending school classes. Education is always considered one of the most important sectors of a country. Livelihood and job opportunities are often directly correlated with education level. India having largest youth population, education becomes utmost important. The govt. is taking many initiatives like launch of various schemes and increase in education budget to improve infrastructure of educational institutes. However, large proportion of such efforts are oriented towards improvement of physical infrastructure which concert more towards input based education system. First time in 2005, Pratham has reported the poor quality of education system in its ASER report which was also found in NAS results. Since then, the need for an outcome based system was highlighted. To overcome such constraints an ICT platform called Lokavidya has been designed so that to minimize problems like unavailability of professional teachers, loss of actual content, lack of schools, boring and monotonous lectures. It could further help learner to self-assess owns performance and understand the gaps. A similar problem was faced by EkalVidyalayas. A pilot had been conducted using Lokavidya application which has helped Ekal teacher-trainers to retain the knowledge, better content delivery and planning, tracking learners and helping them to assimilate lectures with the help of quizzes. Lokavidya aims to cater people (especially at bottom 80%) to share their best practices and keep the traditional knowledge residing in the villages alive.

Keywords: Education system .Livelihood .ASER .NAS .ICT

1 Introduction

India has one of the largest education system with largest population attending school in the world. This is approximately 310 million in the age bracket of 6 to 17 [1]. Multiple initiatives taken up in India like Mid-Day Meal scheme (introduced – 1925 & reached 12 states - 1990-91), SarvaShikhaAbhiyan (2000)and RashtriyaMadhyamikShikshaAbhiyan (2009) show the importance and need of education for all. Such schemes and programs are designed more to increase the physical infrastructure than the social one. Number of enrolments, facilities like school infrastructure, including, better classroom conditions,availability of separate toilets, and computer facilities are all the indicators of physical infrastructures. All these efforts are focussed towards input based education system. The need for outcome based education system like quality of learning which is indicator for social infrastructure, is not given much importance. The Economic survey (2015-16), volume 2 asserts that lower learning outcomes may be attributed to input factors such as the absence of professionally qualified and regular teachers, lack of remedial education for class appropriate learning, shortage of IT based teaching aids; performance in schools due to absence of teachers and also students, despite attempts to address the latter through mid-day meals.

Mere assurance of physical access to education cannot guarantee the quality education. To emphasize over quality of learning an NGO, Pratham is conducting one of its unique kind of surveys since 2005 which gets reflected inits yearly report, Annual Status of Education Report (ASER). The poor quality of learning in Indian schools was identified for the first time. ASER report 2005 says, only 51% children in government schools in std. 5 could read a std. 2 text [2].

1.1 Current Scenario

Although the ratio of number of government to private schools elementary enrolment is decreasing, still the distribution of total schools says out of total schools, 75% are government with 71% in rural areas [3]. This number clearly urges for more focus towards the needs of schools in such areas.

It is often presumed that government teachers’ professional qualities are poorer than that of private ones. Analysis from DISE – SRC data shows, 84.19 % govt. teachers are professionally qualified which is only 78% in case of private teachers. Further it is argued that most of the professional govt. teachers are contractual, which is again being proven wrong. Out of total professional govt. teachers, 87.96% are regular while only 61.52 % are contractual. The actual problem comes when there is hindrance in imparting this knowledge. This can be clearly understood by Pupil Teacher Ratio (PTR) graph shown below:

It seems that PTR for govt. has improved a lot in the past decade but the real comparison would be seen if we have Pupil – Professional Teacher Ratio (PPTR). The graph below indicates the clear lack of professional teachers in govt. schools, especially in elementary schools.

Further, sudden increase in number of repeaters in 9th standard [3], 80% Gross Enrolment Ratio 2016-17 [6], discontinuance or dropping out of males due to engagement in economic activities (31 per cent) and for females, 30% engage in domestic activities, 16% not interested in education followed by 15 % facing financial constraints highlight serious need for an efficient and effective education system [6].

The budget expenditure says, although the percentage of expenditure in budget has remained ~11% since 2011 but the absolute expenditure has increased by 71% and is higher than expenditure in other social services [6].Further, it is found that per student expenditure in govt.schools is higher than that of pvt.schools. This can be seen from the graph below:

The surprising fact is that above expenditure in not analogous with the quality of education which is shown in ASER reports. Around 51% children in class 5 of govt. school could read class 2 text, in 2012 the figure has dropped to 41.7% [2]. Similar to ASER but with different approach, National Achievement Survey (NAS) is conducted by NCERT in cycles, every year. The purpose is to understand the learning standards of III, V and VIII std. students. It was found that 19 out of 31 states/UTs which participated in both the cycles show a significant drop in the learning outcomes for language and mathematics [2]. Students in pvt. Schools are better in reading as well as in maths as compared to govt. students.

2 Need for ICT

With the current infrastructure and approach, achieving quality education for all in time,is quite impractical. This could only be achievable if some supplementary approach using ICT can be considered. Earlier it was hard to invest in such ICT platforms due to high upfront costs (device and internet facility), timely maintenance and most importantly getting a nice platform which could fulfil the requirements of quality education for a student. Nowadays, the whole digital landscape of India is changing. A learner has various options like digital classrooms, online tutoring, assessment, and tablet learning solutions which could be self-paced or live online or flexible online e-learning depending on one’s needs. Similarly for enterprise trainees and working professionals [1].The facts like, 50% increase in India’s internet users in 2015 and mobile being primarily responsible for this are some good signs. Also, India was estimated to have 371 million mobile internet users by June 2016. Smart phone users in India are estimated to grow at a CAGR of 38% in the next 4 years [1]. With the mobile age already here, it has been claimed that mobile learning is the future of learnings [8]. It is found that 92% rural and 77% urban internet users prefer mobile as a primary device of internet access [10]. The main aim of online education is to facilitate learning and improve performance by creating, using, and managing appropriate technological processes and resources [1]. The need for e-learning is also addressed under one of the 9 pillars of Digital India called eKranti [9]. It is an electronic delivery of services which aims for [9],

  • All Schools connected with broadband
  • Free Wi-Fi in all schools (250,000)
  • Digital Literacy program, MOOCs – develop pilot Massive Online Open Courses

Dividing Indian education ecosystem into 4 parts – schooling, higher education, vocational education and skill development and ancillary segments, the last category has the highest CAGR of 22% with second highest market size opportunity of $28bn after the schooling segment [1]. Ancillary segment includes, test preparation and tutoring, content: text books and e-learning and other allied services.

2.1 Impact

Today, the potential of internet has not been correctly portrayed. This can be understood from the figures that out of total internet users, 50% in urban and 39% in rural area are using internet for entertainment purpose. Many people do not use internet mainly due to lack of knowledge (80% in rural as well as urban). Sometimes there are other reasons like no need of internet or it is not a good medium (30% in urban & 2% in rural) [10].

If true benefits of internet can be conveyed then an individual reaps out real outcomes which can act as inputs for the development of the country as a whole.

Digital learning
Pros / Cons
increasing internet penetration (opportunity) / Managing last mile issues of in terms of ensuring that the logistics are handled effectively and schools don’t face issues in terms of installing and maintaining the infrastructure
Eradicating geographical challenges in attending physical classes / Purely Technology-aided training can be monotonous
low expenses in training / Higher upfront cost
Self-paced / Sometimes lead to irregularities
Quality certification / Credibility issues
data driven analysis can be done to deduce how students learn most effectively, and provide real time feedback to improve their learning / Apart from student’s, it needs parent’s or guardian’s attention/support
It expands the learning beyond the classroom walls and allows the teacher to engage with students at home
Students are now able to increase their skill-set by opting for courses taught by the best professors and universities in the world.
Teachers can monitor students’ activities [11]

A study done by group of professors, researchers, student and staff shows that e-learning techniques helps instructors to represent and deliver the information more efficiently. It was also found that better conceptual and actual learning can be obtained by e-learning techniques than withthe traditional ones only.

It was truly said by a leading author and scientist, Benjamin Franklin that,

“Tell me and I'll forget. Show me and I may remember. Involve me and I learn”

This can be seen from pictures below:

Figure: [11]

3 Lokavidya

In the present circumstances, the efficient and reliable techniques are needed for collecting, preserving, organizing (arranging), representing (describing), selecting (retrieving), reproducing (copying), and disseminating documents. Lokavidya is an open educational ICT architecture that helps to capture, complement, supplement and disseminate knowledge of existing integral practices. LV constitutes four platforms:

Figure:

3.1 Aim

Lokavidya basically aims to:

  • Facilitate creation of a modular, interactive and informative audio-visual (with low internet data)
  • Interactive quizzing mechanism
  • Offline experience for low internet connectivity regions
  • Facilitate localization through multilingual feature for all kinds of end users
  • Capture the dynamics of an ecosystem in a systematic manner: Easy information access through advanced search engine for enhanced learning.

This will help to bridge the gap between learners and skilled professionals. This is for the community and by the community.

3.2 Primary target audience/ customers

Any organisation or an NGO or University / Institute, Government or Rural Firm, Corporate / MNC who wants to document, preserve and share their knowledge to their end users / clients that to make learning more engaging and personalized.

3.3 Pilot with an NGO – EkalVidhyalayas

The main activity undertaken in this movement is to run one-teacher schools (known as EkalVidyalayas) all over India, in the remotest rural & tribal villages to take the education to every child. 55,646 Ekalvidyalayas educating 14,79,375 children (as on 31st March, 2017) [12]. Having such a large geographical reach, the organization faces issues like:

  • Retention: Due to long hierarchical system, the actual knowledge is often lost before reaching the real beneficiaries
  • Delivery and Planning: Lack of proper planning and content delivery results in inefficiency to instructors capability as well as to learners knowledge
  • Effective training: Due to irregular and very less number of trainings, the instructor always feels unprepared as a result of which not able to teach trainees/students
  • Tracking: Traditional exams and tests do not help to observe things like, where does the learner needs attention and at what point they feel disinterested

In order to help Ekalachieve its aim, a pilot had been conducted by Lokavidya, under which an end-to-end delivery of an ICT platform for learning is been provided to the teacher trainers.

Methodology for pilot

  • Identified Testing Objectives: Can a new trainee learn oneself by Digital Ekal intervention, test retention enhancement due to the intervention, comparing (with and without intervention) the delivery satisfaction,scope of improvement in experienced group
  • Grouping Trainees: Number of trainings = T and Group = G

G1: T <= 2

G2: 2<T<=6 & highest training

G3: T>6 &! = highest training

  • Assessment 1: Qualitative and Quantitative assessment on the basis of prior knowledge
  • Training 1: How to watch videos and use apps (device distribution)
  • Assessment 2: Trainees watched videos through app, similar questions in the form of quizzes incorporated in the app, trainees are assessed, experience and problem sharing session
  • Training 2: All the teacher trainers are given training for how to use Lokavidya app, for 30 days app was used by the trainers and
  • Assessment 3:Final assessment was done

4 Results

Lokavidya has helped ekal in following ways:

  • Retention: Effective video creation by senior trainers and easy & quick share to teachers
  • Delivery and Planning: Teachers can plan their lecture before teaching children by making notes from videos w/o any limitation on times to watch these videos.
  • Effective training: Teacher can efficiently teach their students with more ways to represent their content and learner can see videos at his/her own pace
  • Tracking: Mechanism to check the status of learners and incorporate quizzes to pin-point areas to be strengthened

Most of the learning happens between the lines, when you have liberty to learn at your own pace. This can be seen from graphs below which shows test results of Ekal NGO teachers, with Lokavidya video learning. In this study two scenarios are presented. In first scene, teachers are assessed on the basis of prior knowledge and trainings attended by a written test. While in the second scene, teachers were provided videos for the content. Here they have liberty to watch videos at their own pace, pause, go back and to see as many times as they want. This further stops the hierarchical loss in content when it passes from down the levels.

The increase in retention rate can be clearly seen from graphs below:

Resultsbefore and after training 1

Results before and after training 2

Out of 18 people, everyone has performed far better after training 1. Also, 13 solved quizzes after attending training 2.Need to be discussed with Nikesh/Pankaj

Further, tracking can be done for each student for each videos they have watched. The teacher trainers can understand the pace of the learners and can optimize their efforts.

Table: Individual Performance Tracked by Lokavidya

Teacher Trainer / Complete / Incomplete / Pause / Play / Resume
Ganjankinake / 2 / 6 / 50 / 16 / 32
Kailash Vaidya / 0 / 1 / 2 / 1 / 1
MamtaAatray / 1 / 0 / 0 / 0 / 0
MatharamDahare / 0 / 4 / 12 / 4 / 1
Monojitsahu / 0 / 9 / 9 / 9
sheshraomeshram / 1 / 1 / 1 / 2 / 0
SudhirRathod / 0 / 0 / 0 / 1 / 0
SunitaParishe / 1 / 16 / 57 / 27 / 19

5 Conclusion

The study has shown the need for supplementary services like an ICT platform so that to overcome infrastructural constraints of current education system. The lower learning outcomes especially in govt. schools based in rural areas are indicated in ASER reports. Instead of increased number of enrolments and professional govt. teachers in regular category, improved PTR, still the quality of the education imparted has hardly improved. With the change in digital landscape of India, mobile has been claimed as the future of learning. This is further backed by the fact that 92% rural and 77% urban internet users prefer mobile as a primary device of internet access. Having such statistics, Lokavidya has been designed to capture, complement, supplement and disseminate knowledge of existing integral practices. The pilot has been successfully done with EkalVidyalayas one of the largest NGOs in India. LV has helped teacher trainers of Ekal to retain quality of the content and minimise losses occur due to hierarchical knowledge transfer training system. Also, with its inbuilt quizzing system learning becomes intriguing and helps learner to self-assess own performance. Similarly for instructor, data like number of pauses, stops and videos completed or uncompleted helps to optimize their efforts and give attention to individuals as per their holistic performance. Results shows (to do)

Although digital learning cannot replace the conventional model of education system but it can supplement it by filling in the existing need-gaps.

Ultimately, Technology – no matter how well designed –is only a magnifier of human intent and capacity – Kentaro Toyama

References

1. Saxena A, Singh P, Jain R, Ahuja D (2016) Technopark and SimplilearnWhitepaper on Digital Learning Market in India

2. Annual Status of Education Report (Rural)(2016) ASER Centre, New Delhi

3. DISE - State Report Card Raw Data (2015-16)

4. Elementary education in India: trends, Flash Statistics (2005-06 to 2015-16) All India elementary DISE report 2015-16

5. School education in India U-DISE (2015-16) Flash Statistics as on 30th September, 2015

6. Economic survey (2016-17) Volume 2, Economic Division, Dept. of Economic Affairs, Ministry of Finance, GOI

7. Dongre A, Kapur A, Tewari V (2014) How much does India spend per student on elementary education? In: PAISA, Accountability Initiative, Centre for Policy Research, New Delhi

8. Bowen K, Pistilli M. D (2012) Student Preferences for mobile app usage. Educause Centre for Applied Research

9. Pillars of Digital India. accessed on 06/12/17)

10. IAMAI & KANTAR IMRB Report Internet in India - 2016

11. A Comparative Study of E-Learning Technique with Traditional Teaching Techniques

12. EkalAbhiyan Annual Report 2016-17

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